s 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

The  Theodore  H.  Koundakjian 

Collection 
of  American  Humor 


"*'. , 
y 


Mile 


NILE   NOTES 


OF   A   HOWADJI. 


NEW  YORK: 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS, 

82   CLIFF    STREET.     . 

1851 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1851. 

BY    HARPER   &    BROTHERS, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York, 


"  A  foutra  for  the  world  and  worldlings  base, 
T  sing  of  Africa  and  golden  joys." 

King  Henry  IV.,  Part  ii. 

_ " or  I  described 

Great  Egypt's  flaring  sky,  or  Spain's  cork  groves." 

Robert  Browning's  "  Paracelsus." 

"  If  it  be  asked  why  it  is  called  the  Nile,  the  answer  is,  because  it  has 
beautiful  and  good  water." 

Werners  "  White  JVtfe." 

"  What  then  is  a  Howadji  ?"  said  the  Emperor  of  Ethiopia,  draining  a 
beaker  of  crocodile  tears. 

"Howadji,"  replied  the  astute  Arabian,  "is  our  name  for  merchants,  and 
as  only  merchants  travel,  we  so  call  travelers." 

"  Allah-'hu  Ak-bar,"  said  the  Emperor  of  Ethiopia.    "  God  is  great." 
Linkum  Fidelius*  "  Calm  Crocodile,  or  the  Sphinx  unriddled." 

" He  saw  all  the  rarities  at  Cairo,  as  also  the  pyramids,  and  sailing 

up  the  Nile,  viewed  the  famous  towns  on  each  side  of' that  river." 

Story  of  Mi  Cogia  in  the  Arabian  Nights. 

"Canopus  is  afar  off,  Memnon  resoundeth  not  to  the  sun,  and  Nilus 
heareth  strange  voices." 

Sir  Thomas  Browne. 

" There  can  one  chat  with  mummies  in  a  pyramid,  and  breakfast  ou 

basilisk's  eggs.  Thither,  then,  Homunculus  Mandrake,  son  of  the  greaJ 
Paracelsus ;  languish  no  more  in  the  ignorance  of  those  climes,  but  abroad 
with  alembic  and  crucible,  and  weigh  anchor  for  Egypt." 

Death's  Jest  Book,  or  the  Fool's  Tragedy. 


WHEN  the  Persian   Poet   Hafiz  was   asked   by  the.  Philos 
opher    Zenda   what   he   was   good   for,    he   replied — 
"Of  what   use   is   a   flower?" 

"  A   flower   is   good   to   smell,"    said   the   philosopher. 
"And   I   am   good  to   smell   it,"   said   the   poet. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAO« 

I. — GOING  TO  BOULAK,        .        .        .        .        .        .  15 

II.— THE  DRAG-&-MEN, 23 

III.— -HADJI  HAMED,       .        .        .        .      \        ...      33 
IV.— -THE  IBIS  SINGS,         .        ,       ,.^       .        .        .        .          39 

V.— THE  €REW, '   .      45 

VI.— THE  IBIS^LIES,        ...        .        .       ..       ..          53 

VII.— THE  LANDSCAPE,   .        .        .     x.        .        ...      59 

VIII.— TRACKING, 65 

JX.— FLYING,         .        ......        .        .      70 

X.— VERDE  GIOVANE  AND  FELLOW  MARINERS,         .        .         74 
XL— VERDE  PIU  GIOVANE,  .  .        .        .  '     .        .        .        .-79 

XIL— ASYOOT,    .        .        .        .        .      \  .          86 

XIII.— THE  Sw,      .        .        .        .        .        ....      95 

XIV.— THEBES  TRIUMPHANT, 101 

XV.— THE  CROCODILE,    .        .        .        .        .        .  ._  103 

XVI.— GETTING  ASHORE, '-V^-,111 

XVII.— FAIR  FRAILTY,      .        .        .        .        .  .        .114 

XVIII.— FAIR  FRAILTY  CONTINUED,         .        .        .^  120 

XIX.— KUSHUK  ARNEM,    .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .125 

-XX.— TERPSICHORE,     .        .        .....        ,        .        133 

XXI.— SAKIAS,          .        .        ...        ....       .        .        .138 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXII.— UNDER  THE  PALMS,      ......        143 

XXIIL— ALMS !  O  SHOPKEEPER!    ...        .        .        .154 

XXIV.— SYENE,          .        .        .        .        .      .  .        .        .         157 

XXV.— TREATY  OF  SYENE,          .        .        ...        .163 

XXVI.— THE  CATARACT, ,170 

XXVII.— NUBIAN  WELCOME, 177 

XXVIII.— PHILJE,         .        . 181 

XXIX. — A   CROW   THAT   FLIES   IN   HEAVEN'S   SWEETEST   AlR,      188 

XXX.— SOUTHWARD,         . 195 

XXXI.— ULTIMA  THULE, 203 

XXXII.— NORTHWARD,       .        .     '  .  .    ^.        .        .        .212 
XXXIIL— BY  THE  GRACE  OF  GOD,         .        .        .        .        .    225 

XXXIV.— FLAMINGOES, 233 

XXXV.— CLEOPATRA,     .        . 237 

XXXVL— MEMNON,       .        .      ,  .        .        .        .        .        .        252 

XXXVII.— DEAD  KINGS, „  .     260 

XXXVIIL— BURIED, 266 

XXXIX.— DEAD  QUEENS, 273 

XL.— ET  CETERA, 276 

XLL— THE  MEMNONIUM, 280 

XLII.— MEDEENET  HABOO, 284 

XLIII.— KARNAK,  .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .291 

XLIV.— PRUNING,       .        .        .        .        .  .        300 

XLV.— PER  CONTRA, 306 

XLVI.— MEMPHIS,      .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .311 

XLVII.— SUNSET,  319 


NILE    NOTES. 


I. 

(0nitig  tn  fJna'UlL 

IN  a  gold  and  purple  December  sunset,  the  Pacha  and 
I  walked  down  to  the  boat  at  Boulak,  the  port  of  Cairo. 
The  Pacha  was  my  friend,  and  it  does  not  concern  you, 
gracious  reader,  to  know  if  he  were  Sicilian,  or  Syrian ; 
whether  he  wore  coat  or  kaftan,  had  a  hareem,  or  was  a 
baleful  bachelor.  The  air  was  warm,  like  a  May  evening 
in  Italy.  Behind  us,  the  slim  minarets  of  Cairo  spired 
shiningly  in  the  brilliance,  like  the  towers  of  a  fairy  city, 
under  the  sunset  sea. 

These  minarets  make  the  Eastern  cities  so  beautiful. 
The  heavy  mound-like  domes  and  belfries  of  western 
Europe  are  of  the  earth,  earthy.  But  the  mingled  mass 
of  building,  which  a  city  is,  soars  lightly  to  the  sky  in  the 
lofty  minarets  on  whose  gold  crescent  crowns  the  sun 
lingers  and  lingers,  making  them  the  earliest  stars  of 
evening. 

To  our  new  eyes  every  thing  was  picture.  Vainly  the 
broad  road  was  crowded  with  Muslim  artisans,  home- 
returning  from  their  work.  To  the  mere  Muslim  observer, 
they  were  carpenters,  masons,  laborers  and  tradesmen  of 


1G  NILE    NOTES. 


all  kinds.  We  passed  many  a  meditating  Cairene,  to 
whom  there  was  nothing  but  the  monotony  of  an  old  story 
in  that  evening  and  on  that  road.  But  we  saw  all  the 
pageantry  of  oriental  romance  quietly  donkeying  into 
Cairo.  Camels  too,  swaying  and  waving  like  huge  phan 
toms  of  the  twilight,  horses  with  strange  gay  trappings 
curbed  by  tawny  turbaned  equestrians,  the  peaked  toe  of 
the  red  slipper  resting  in  the  shovel  stirrup.  It  was  a  fair 
festal  evening.  The  whole  world  was  masquerading, /and 
so  well  that  it  seemed  reality. 

I  saw  Fadladeen  with  a  gorgeous  turban  and  a  gay 
sash.  His  chibouque,  wound  with  colored  silk  and  gold 
threads,  was  borne  behind  him  by  a  black  slave.  Fat  and 
funny  was  Fadladeen  as  of  old ;  and  though  Fermorz  was 
not  by,  it  was  clear  to  see  in  the  languid  droop  of  his 
eye,  that  choice  Arabian  verses  were  sung  by  the  twilight 
in  his  rnind. 

Yet  was  Venus  still  the  evening  star  ;  for  behind 
him,  closely  veiled,  came  Lalla  Rookh.  She  was  wrapped 
in  a  vast  black  silken  bag,  that  bulged  like  a  balloon  over 
her  donkey.  But  a  star-suffused  evening  cloud  was  that 
bulky  blackness,  as  he*  twin  eyes  shone  forth  liquid!  y 
lustrous. 

Abon  Hassan  sat  at  the  city  gate,  and  I  saw  Haroun 
Alrashid  quietly  coming  up  in  that  disguise  of  a  Moussoul 
merchant.  I  could  not  but  wink  at  Abon,  for  I  knew  him 
so  long  ago  in  the  Arabian  Nights.  But  he  rather  stared 
than  saluted,  as  friends  may,  in  a  masquerade.  There 
was  Sinbad  the  porter,  too.  hurrying  to  ftinbad  the  sailor. 


GOING    TO    BOULAK.  lY 

I  turned  and  watched  his  form  fade  in  the  twilight,  yet  I 
doubt  if  he  reached  Bagdad  in  time  for  the  eighth  history. 

Scarce  had  he  passed  when  a  long  string  of  donkeys 
ambled  by,  bearing  each,  one  of  the  inflated  balloons.  It  • 
was  a  hareem  taking  the  evening  air.  A  Jiuge  eunuch 
was  the  captain,  and  rode  before.  They  are  bloated,  dead- 
eyed  creatures,  the  eunuchs — but  there  be  no  eyes  oi 
greater  importance  to  marital  minds.  The  .ladies  came 
gayly  after,  in  single  file,  chatting  together,  and  although 
Araby's  daughters  are  still  born  to  blush  unseen,  they 
looked  earnestly  upon  the  staring  strangers.  Did  those 
strangers  long  to  behold  that  hidden  beauty  ?  Could  they 
help  it  if  all  the  softness  and  sweetness  of  hidden  faces 
radiated  from  melting  eyes  ? 

Then  came  Sakkas — men  with  hog  skins  slung  over 
their  backs,  full  of  water.  I  remembered  the  land  and 
the  time  of  putting  wine  into  old  bottles,  and  was  shoved 
back  beyond  glass.  Pedlers — swarthy  fatalists  in  lovely 
lengths  of  robe  and  turban,  cried  their  wares.  To  our 
Frank  ears,  it  was  mere  Babel  jargon.  Yet  had  erudite 
Mr.  Lane  accompanied  us,  Mr.  Lane,  the  eastern  English 
man,  who  has  given  us  so  many  golden  glimpses  into  the 
silence  and  mystery  of  oriental  life,  like  a  good  genius  re 
vealing  to  ardent  lovers  the  very  hallowed  heart  of  the 
hareem,  we  should  have  understood  those  cries. 

We  should  have  heard  "  Sycamore  figs — 0  Grapes" — 
meaning  that  said  figs  were  offered,  and  the  sweetness  of 
sense  and  sound  that  "  grape"  hath  was  only  bait  for  the 
attention:  or  "  Odors  of  Paradise,  0  flowers  of  the 


18  NILE    NOTES. 


henna,"  causing  Muslim  maidens  to  tingle  to  their  very 
nails'  ends ;  or,  indeed,  these  Pedler  Poets,  vending  water 
melons,  sang,  "  Consoler  of  the  embarrassed,  0  Pips." 
Were  they  not  poets,  these  pedlers,  and  full  of  all  oriental 
extravagance  ?  For  the  sweet  association  of  poetic  names 
shed  silvery  sheen  over  the  actual  article  offered.  The 
unwary  philosopher  might  fancy  that  he  was  buying  com 
fort  in  a  green  watermelon,  and  the  pietist  dream  of  me 
mentoes  of  heaven,  in  the  mere  earthly  vanity  of  henna. 

But  the  philanthropic  merchant  of  sour  limes  cries, 
"  God  make  them  light — limes" — meaning  not  the  fruit 
nor  the  stomach  of  the  purchaser,  but  his  purse.  And 
what  would  the  prisoners  of  the  passing  black  balloons 
say  to  the  ambiguousness  of  "  The  work  of  the  bull,  0 
maidens !"  innocently  indicating  a  kind  of  cotton  cloth 
made  by  bull-moved  machinery  ?  Will  they  never  have 
done  with  hieroglyphics  and  sphinxes,  these  Egyptians  ? 
Here  a  man,  rose- embowered,  chants,  "  The  rose  is  a 
thorn,  from  the  sweat  of  the  prophet  it  bloomed" — mean 
ing  simply,  "  Fresh  roses." 

These  are  masquerade  manners,  but  they  are  pleasant. 
The  maiden  buys  not  henna  only,  but  a  thought  of  heav 
en.  The  poet  not  watermelons  only,  but  a  dream  of  con 
solation,  which  truly  he  will  need.  When  shall  we  hear 
in  Broadway,  "  Spring  blush  of  the  hillsides,  0  Strawber 
ries,"  or  "  Breast  tiuds  of  Venus,  0  milk."  Never,  never, 
until  milkmen  are  turbaned,  and  berry- women  ballooned. 
A  pair  of  Persians  wound  among  these  pedlers,  clad  in 
their  strange  costume.  They  wore  high  shaggy  hats  and 


GOING    TO    BOULAK.  19 

undressed  skins,  and  in  their  girdles  shone  silver-mounted 
pistols  and  daggers.  They  had  come  into  the  West,  and 
were  loitering  along,  amazed  at  what  was  extremest  East 
to  us.  They  had  been  famous  in  Grotham,  no  Muscat  en 
voy  more  admired.  But  nobody  stared  at  them  here  ex 
cept  us.  We  were  the  odd  and  observed.  We  had  strayed 
into  the  universal  revel,  and  had  forgotten  to  don  turbans 
at  the  gate.  0  Pyramids !  thought  I,  to  be  where  Persians 
are  commonplace. 

In  this  brilliant  bewilderment  we  played  only  the  part 
of  Howadji,  which  is  the  universal  name  for  traveler^the 
"  Forestiero"  of  Italy.  It  signifies  merchant  or  shopkeeper ; 
and  truly  the  Egyptians  must  agree  with  the  bilious 
Frenchman  that  the  English  are  a  nation  of  shopkeepers, 
seeing  thern  swarm  forever  through  his  land. ,  For  those 
who  dwell  at  Karnak  and  in  the  shadow  of  Memnon,  who 
build  their  mud  huts  upon  the  Edfoo  Temple,  and  break 
up  Colossi  for  lime,  can  not  imagine  any  travel  but  that 
for  direct  golden  gain.  Belzoni  was  held  in  the  wiser  na 
tive  mind  to  be  a  mere  Dousterswivel  of  a  treasure-hunter. 
Did  not  Hamed  Aga  come  rushing  two  days'  journey  with 
two  hundred  men,  and  demand  of  him  that  large  golden 
<5ock  full  of  diamonds  and  pearls?  Think  how  easily  the 
Arabian  Nights  must  have  come  to  such  men !  Sublime 
stupidity!  0  Egyptians. 

And  so  advancing,  the  massively  foliaged  acacias  bow- 
ered  us  in  golden  gloom.  They*  fringed  and  arched  the 
long  road.  Between  their  trunks,  like  noble  columns  of  the 
foreground,  we  saw  the  pyramids  rosier  in  the  western 


20  NILE    NOTES. 


rosiness.  Their  forms  were  sculptured  sharply  in  the 
sunset.  We  knew  that  they  were  on  the  edge  of  the 
desert;  that  their  awful  shadows  darkened  the  sphinx. 
For  so  fair  and  festal  is  still  the  evening  picture  in  that 
delicious  climate,  in  that  poetic  land.  We  breathed  the 
golden  air,  and  it  bathed  our  eyes  with  new  vision.  Peach- 
Blossom,  who  came  with  us  from  Malta,  solemnly  intent 
"to  catch  the  spirit  of  the  East,"  could  not  have  resisted 
the  infection  of  that  enchanted  evening. 

I  know  you  will  ask  me  if  an  Eastern  book  can  not  be 
written  without  a  dash  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  if  we  can 
not  get  on  without  Haroun  Alrashid.  No,  impatient 
reader,  the  East  hath  throughout  that  fine  flavor.  The 
history  of  Eastern  life  is  embroidered  to  our  youngest  eyes 
in  that  airy  arabesque.  What  to  even  many  of  us  very 
wise  ones  is  the  history  of  Bagdad,  more  than  the  story  of 
our  revered  caliph  ?  Then  the  romance  of  travel  is  real. 
It  is  the  man  going  to  take  possession  of  the  boy's  heri 
tage,  those  dear  dreams  of  stolen  school-hours  over  wild  ro 
mance  ;  and  in  vain  would  he  separate  his  poetry  from  his 
prose.  Gfiven  a  turban,  a  camel  or  a  palm-tree,  and 
Zobeide,  the  Princess  Bad  our  a  and  the  youngest  brother  of 
the  Barber  step  forward  into  the  prose  of  experience. 

For  as  we  leave  the  main  road  and  turn  finally  from 
the  towers,  whose  gold  is  graying  now,  behold  the  parting 
picture  and  confess  the  East. 

The  moon  has  gathered  the  golden  light  in  her  shal 
low  cup,  and  pours  it  paler  over  a  bivouac  of  camels,  by  a 
sheik's  white-domed  tomb.  They  growl  arid  blubber  as 


GOING    TO    BOtTLAK.  %\ 

they  kneel  with  their  packs  of  dates  and  almonds  and 
grain,  oriental  freight  mostly,  while  others  are  already 
down,  still  as  Sphinxes.  The  rest  sway  their  curved 
necks  silently,  and  glance  contemptuously  at  the  world. 

The  drivers,  in  dark  turbans  and  long  white  robes  coax 
and  command.  The  dome  of  the  sheik's  crumbling  tomb 
is  whiter  in  the  moonlight.  The  brilliant  bustle  recedes 
behind  those  trees.  A  few  Cairenes  pass  by  unnoticing,  but 
we  are  in  desert  depths.  For  us  all  the  caravans  of  all 
Arabian  romance  are  there  encamping. 

The  Howadji  reached  at  length  the  Nile,  gleaming 
calm  in  the  moonlight.  A  fleet  of  river  boats  lay  moored 
to  the  steep  stony  bank.  The  Nile  and  the  pyramids  had 
bewitched  the  night,  for  it  was  full  of  marvelous  pictures  and 
told  tales  too  fair.  Yet  do  not  listen  too  closely  upon 
the  shore,  lest  we  hear  the  plash  and  plunge  of  a  doomed 
wife  or  slave.  These  things  have  not  passed  away.  This 
luxuriant  beauty,  this  poetry  of  new  impressions,  has  its 
balance.  This  tropical  sun  suckles  serpents  with  the  same 
light  that  adorns  the  gorgeous  flowers.  In  the  lush  jun 
gle,  splendid  tigers  lurk, — -ah !  in  our  poetic  Orient  beau 
ty  is  more  beautiful,  but  deformity  more  deformed.  The 
excellent  EfFendi  or  paternal  Pacha  has  twenty  or  two 
hundred  wives,  and  is,  of  necessity,  unfaithful.  But  if  the 
ballooned  Georgian  or  Circassian  slips  up,  it  is  into  the 
remorseless  river. 

Yet  with  what  solemn  shadows  do  these  musings  en 
dow  the  Egyptian  moonlight.  They  move  invisible  over 
the  face  of  the  waters,  and  evoke  another  creation.  Co-- 


22  NILE    NOTES 


lumbus  sailed  out  of  the  Mediterranean  to  a  new  world. 
We  have  sailed  into  it,  to  a  new  one.  The  South  seduces 
now,  as  the  West  of  old.  When  we  reach  one  end  of  the 
world,  the  other  has  receded  into  romantic  dimness,  and 
beckons  us  backward  to  explore.  The  Howadji  seek 
Cathay.  In  the  morning,  with  wide- winged  sails,  we 
shall  fly  beyond  our  history.  Listen !  How  like  a  Pedler- 
Poet  of  Cairo  chanting  his  wares,  moans  Time  through 
the  Eternity — "  Cobwebs  and  fable,  0  history !" 


H. 


As  we  stepped  on  board,  we  should  have  said,  "In  the 
name  of  Grod,  the  compassionate,  the  merciful."  For  so 
say  all  pious  Muslim,  undertaking  an  ,  arduous  task  ;  and 
so  let  all  pious  Howadji  exclaim  when  they  set  forth 
with  any  of  those  "  guides,  philosophers,  and  friends,"  the 
couriers  of  the  Orient  —  the  Dragomen. 

These  gentry  figure  well  in  the  Eastern  books.  The 
young  traveler,  already  enamored  of  Eothen's  Dhemetri,  or 
Warburton's  Mahmoud,  or  Harriet  Martineau's  Alee,  leaps 
ashore  expecting  to  find  a  very  Pythias  to  his  Damon  mood, 
and  in  his  constant  companion  to  embrace  a  concrete  Ori 
ent.  These  are  his  Alexandrian  emotions  and  hopes, 
Those  poets,  Harriet  and  Eliot,  are  guilty  of  much.  Pos 
sibly  as  the  youth  descends  the  Lebanon  to  Beyrout,  five 
months  later,  he  will^still  confess  that  it  was  the  concrete 
Orient;  but  own  that  he  knew  not  the  East>  in  those 
merely  Mediterranean  moods  of  hope  and  romantic  reading. 

The  Howadji  lands  at  Alexandria,  and  is  immediately 
invested  by  long  lines  of  men  in  bright  turbans  and  baggy 
breeches.  If  you  have  a  slight  poetic  tendency,  it  is 


24  NILE    NOTES. 


usually  too  much  for  you.  You  succumb  to  the  rainbow 
sash  and  red  slippers.  "Which  is  Alee  ?"  cry  you,  in  en 
thusiasm  ;  and  lo !  all  are  Alee.  No,  but  with  Dhemetri 
might  there  not  be  rich  Eastern  material  and  a  brighter 
Eothen  ?  Yes,  but  all  are  Dhemetri.  "  Mahmoud,  Mah- 
moud !"  and  the  world  of  baggy  breeches  responds,  "  Yes, 
sir." 

If  you  are  heroic,  you  dismiss  the  confusing  crowd,  and 
then  the  individuals  steal  separately  and  secretly  to  your 
room  and  claim  an  audience.  They  have  volumes  of  their 
own  praise.  Traveling  Cockaigne  has  striven  to  express  its 
satisfaction  in  the  most  graceful  and  epigrammatic  man 
ner.  The  "  characters"  in  all  the  books  have  a  sonnet-like 
air,  each  filling  its  page,  and  going  to  the  same  tune. 
There  is  no  skepticism,  and  no  dragoman  has  a  fault. 
Records  of  such  intelligence,  such  heroism,  such  persever 
ance,  honesty,  and  good  cooking,  exist  in  no  other  litera 
ture.  It  is  Eothen  and  the  other  poets  in  a  more  portable 
form. 

Some  Howadji  can  not  resist  the  sonnets  and  the 
slippers,  and  take  the  fatal  plunge  even  at  Alexandria. 
Wines  and  ,the  ecstatic  Irish  doctor  did  so  under  our  eyes, 
and  returned  six  weeks  later  to  Cairo,  from  the  upper 
Nile,  with  just  vigor  enough  remaining  to  get  rid  of  their 
man.  For  the  Turkish  costume  and  the  fine  testimonials 
are  only  the  illuminated  initials  of  the  chapter.  Very 
darkly  monotonous  is  the  reading  that  follows. 

The  Dragoman  is  of  four  species :  the  Maltese,  or  the 
able  knave, — the  Gfreek,  or  the  cunning  knave,-^-the 


THE    DRAGOMEN.  ',25 

Syrian,  or  the  active  knave, — and  the  Egyptian,  or  the 
stupid  knave.  They  wear  generally  the  Eastern  costume. 
But  the  Maltese  and  the  Greeks  often  sport  bad  hats  and 
coats,  and  call  themselves  Christians.  They  are  the  most 
ignorant,  vain,  incapable,  and  unsatisfactory  class  of  men 
that  the  wandering  Howadji  meets.  They  travel  con 
stantly  the  same  route,  yet  have  no  eyes  to  see  nor  ears  to 
hear.  If  on  the  Nile,  they  smoke  and  sleep  in  the  boat. 
If  on  the  desert,  they  smoke  and  sleep  on  the  camel.  If  in. 
Syria,  they  smoke  and  sleep,  if  they  can,  on  the  horse.  It 
is  their  own  comfort — their  own  convenience  and  profit, 
which  they  constantly  pursue.  The  Howadji  is  a  bag  of 
treasure  thrown  by  a  kind  fate  upon  their  shores,  and 
they  are  the  wreckers  who  squeeze,  tear,  and  pull  him, 
top,  bottom,  and  sideways,  to  bleed  him  of  his  burden. 

They  should  be  able  to  give  you  every  information 
about  your  boat,  and  what  is  necessary,  and  .what  use 
less.  Much  talk  you  do  indeed  get,  and  assurance  that 
every  thing  will  be  accurately  arranged  ;  but  you  are 
fairly  afloat  upon  the  Nile  before  you  discover  how  lost 
upon  the  dragoman  have  been  all  his  previous  voyages. 

With  miserable  weakness  they  seek  to  smooth,  the 
moment,  and  perpetually  baffle  your  plans,  by  telling  you 
not  the  truth,  but  what  they  suppose  you  wish  the  truth 
to  be.  Nothing  is  ever  more  than  an  hour  or  two  distant. 
They  involve  you  in  absurd  arrangements  because  "  it  is 
the  custom ;"  and  he  is  a  hardy  Howadji  who  struggles 
against  the  vis  inertise  of  ignorant  incapacity  and  misera 
ble  cheating  through  the  whole  tour. 


26  NILE    NOTES. 


Active  intelligence  on  the  Howadji's  part  is  very  dis 
gusting  to  them.  If  he  scrutinize  his  expenses, — if  he 
pretend  to  know  his  own  will  or  way — much  more  to 
have  it  executed,  the  end  of  things  clearly  approaches 
to  the  dragomanic  mind.  The  small  knaveries  of  cheat 
ing  in  the  price  of  every  thing  purchased,  and  in  the 
amount  of  bucksheesh  or  gratuity  on  all  occasions,  are 
not  to  be  seriously  heeded,  because  they  are  universal.  The 
real  evils  are  the  taking  you  out  of  your  way  for  their 
own  comfort,-— the  favoring  a  poor  resting-place  or  hotel, 
because  they  are  well  paid  there, — and  the  universally 
unreliable  information  that  they  afford.  Were  they  good 
servants,  it  were,  some  consolation.  But  a  servile  Eastern 
can  not  satisfy  the  Western  idea  of  good  service. 

Perhaps  it  was  a  bad  year  for  dragomen,  as  it  was  for 
potatoes.  But  such  was  the  result  of  universal  testimony. 

Nero  found  a  Greek  at  Alexandria,  whose  recommen 
dations  from  men  known  to  him  were  quite  enthusias 
tic.  He  engaged  him,  and  the  dragoman  was  the  sole 
plague  of  Nero's  Egyptian  experience,  but  one  combin 
ing  the  misery  of  all  the  rest.  There  were  Wind  and 
Rain,  too,  whose  man  was  a  crack  dragoman,  and  of  all 
such,  oh !  enthusiastic  reader,  especially  beware.  They 
returned  to  Cairo  chanting  "miserere — miserere" — and 
in  the  spring,  sought  solace  in  the  bosom  of  the  scarlet 
Lady  at  Jerusalem.  For  which  latter  step,  however,  not 
even  irate  I,  hold  the  dragoman  responsible. 

Mutton  Suet's  man  furnished  his  Nile  larder,  at  the 
rate  of  eight  boxes  of  sweet  biscuit,  and  twenty  bottles  of 


:  .. 

THE    DRAGOMEN.  27 

pickles  to  two  towels — a  lickerous  larder,  truly,  but  I  am 
convinced  Mutton  Suet's  man's  palate  required  sharp 
stimulants. 

The  little  Yerde  Giovane  and  (running  changed  their 
dragoman  weekly  while  they  remained  at  Cairo.  The 
difficulty  was  not  all  on  one  side.  The  dragoman  wanted 
to  be  master,  and  Yerde  knew  not  how  to  help  it,  and 
Gunning  was  ill  of  a  fever.  Those  excellent  Howadji  did 
,not  recover  from  the  East  without  a  course  of  a  half-dozen 
dragomen. 

But  most  melancholy  was  the  case  of  a  Howadji,  whom 
we  met  wandering  in  the  remote  regions  of  the  Mle.  He 
was  a  kind  of  flying  Dutchman,  always  gliding  about  in  a 
barque  haunted  by  a  dragoman,  and  a  Reis  or  captain, 
who  would  not  suffer  him  to  arrive  anywhere.  The 
moons  of  three  months  had  waxed  and  waned  since  they 
left  Cairo.  "Winds  never  blew  for  that  unhappy  boat, 
currents  were  always  adverse, — illness  and  inability  seized 
the  crew.  Landing  at  lonely  towns  the  dragoman  sold 
him  his  own  provisions,  previously  sent  ashore  for  the 
purpose,  at  an  admirable  advance.  Gradually  he  was 
becoming  the  Ancient  Mariner  of  the  Nile.  He  must  have 
grown  grisly, — I  am  sure  that  he  was  sad.  ''&?r 

One  day  as  the  fated  boat  or  Dahabieh  came  spectrally 
sliding  over  the  calm,  our  dragoman  told  us  the  story 
with  sardonic  smiles,  and  we  looked  with  awful  interest  at 
the  haunted  barque.  I  saw  the  demoniac  dragoman  smok 
ing  by  the  kitchen,  and  the  crew,  faintly  rowing,  sang  the 
slowest  of  slow  songs.  The  flag,  wind-rent  and  sun- 


28  NILE    NOTES. 


bleached,  clung  in  motionless  despair  to  the  mast.  The 
sails  were  furled  away  almost  out  of  sight.  It  was  a 
windless  day,  and  the  sun  shone  spectrally. 

I  looked  for  the  mariner,  but  saw  only  a  female  figure 
in  a  London  bonnet  sitting  motionless  at  the  cabin  window. 

The  dragoman-ridden  was  probably  putting  on  his  hat. 
Was  it  a  game  of  their  despair  to  play  arriving,  and  getting 
ready  to  go — for  the  lady  sat  as  ladies  sit  in  steamers, 
when  they  near  the  wharf — or  was  this  only  a  melancholy 
remembrance  of  days  and  places,  when  they  could  don  hat 
and  bonnet,  and  choose  their  own  way — or  simply  a  mood 
of  madness? 

They  passed,  and  we  saw  them  no  more,  I  never  heard 
of  them  again.  They  are  still  sailing  on  doubtless,  and  you 
will  hear  the  slow  song  and  see  the  unnecessary  bonnet, 
and  behold  a  Howadji  buying  his  own  provisions.  Say 
"  Pax  vobisoum"  as  they  pass,  nor  bless  the  dragomen. 

I  heard  but  one  Howadji  speak  well  of  his  dragoman, 
and  he  only  comparatively  and  partially.  At  Jerusalem 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Duck  dismissed  his  Maltese,  and  took  an 
Egyptian — which  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Duck's  method  of 
stepping  from  the  pan  into  the  fire.  At  the  same  time 
Eschylus, — not  our  Greek,  but  a  modern  man  of  affairs, 
and  not  easily,  appalled  at  circumstances,  banished  his 
brace  of  Maltese,  and  declared  that  he  was  wild  with 
dragomen,  and  did  not  believe  a  decent  one  could  exist. 

Yet  Eschylus,  in  sad  seriousness  of  purpose  to  accom 
plish  the  East,  took  another  dragoman  at  Jerusalem,  a 
baleful  mortal  with  one  eye,  and  a  more  able  bandit  than 


THE    DRAGOMEN.  29 

the  rest.  For  this  man  Eschylus  paid  twenty  piasters  a 
day,  board,  at  the  hotel  in  Jerusalem.  Polyphemus  request 
ed  him  with  a  noble  frankness  not  to  give  the  money  to 
him,  but  to  pay  it  directly  to  the  landlord  in  person — mean 
while  he  delayed  him,  and  delayed,  in  Jerusalem,  until  at 
parting,  the  landlord  with  equal  frankness  told  Eschylus, 
that  he  was  obliged  to  refund  to  the  dragomen  every  thing 
paid  for  them,  as  otherwise  he  would  discover  that  some 
cat  or  dog  had  twitched  his  table  cloths,  and  destroyed 
whole  services  of  glass  and  china — and  this  best  hotel  in 
the  East,  was  to  be  discontinued  for  that  and  similar 
reasons.  For  the  landlord  had  sparks  of  human  sympathy 
even  with  mere  Howadji,  and  the  dragomen  had  sworn 
his  ruin.  All  Howadji  were  taken  to  another  house,  and  it 
was  only  by  positive  insistance  that  we  reached  this. 

Of  all  the  knavery  of  Polyphemus,  this  book  would  not 
contain  the  history.  At  the  end  Eschylus,  told  him  quietly, 
that  he  had  robbed  him  repeatedly — that  since  engaging 
him  he  had  heard  that  he  was  a  noted  scamp, — that  he 
had  been  insolent  to  Madame  Eschylus — that,  in  short — 
waxing  warm  as  he  perorated,  that  he  was  a  damned 
rascal.  Then  he  paid  him, — for  litigation  is  useless  in  the 
East,  where  the  Christian  word  is  valueless, — informed 
him  that  all  English  Howadji  should  be  informed  of  his 
name  and  nature,  after  which,  Polyphemus  endeavored  to 
kiss  his  hand ! 

Then  consider  Leisurelie's  Domenico  Chiesa,  Sunday 
Church,  "  begging  your  pardon,  sir,  I  am  il  primo  drago- 
mano  del  mondo, — the  first  dragoman  in  the  world." 


30  NILE   NOTES. 


"  Domem'co,"  said  Leisurelie  one  day  in  Jerusalem, 
"  where  is  Mount  Calvary  ?"  You  know,  my  young  friend 
of  fourteen  years,  that  it  is  in  the  church  of  the  holy 
sepulcher — but  ilprimb  dragomano  del  mondo  waved  his 
hand  vaguely  around  the  horizon,  with  his  eyes  wandering 
about  the  far  blue  mountains  of  Moab,  and  "  0,  begging 
your  pardon,  sir,  it's  there,  just  there." 

Such  are  our  Arabic  interpreters,  such  your  concrete 
Orient.  Yet  if  you  believe  all  your  dragoman  says — if 
you  will  only  believe  that  he  does  know  something,  and 
put  your  nose  into  his  fingers,  you  will  go  very  smoothly 
to  Beyrout,  dripping  gold  all  the  way,  and  then  improvise 
a  brief  pean  in  the  book  of  sonnets.  But  if  the  Howadji 
mean  to  be  master,  the  romance  will  unroll  like  a  cloud 
wreath,  from  that  poetic  tawny  friend,  and  he  will  find 
all  and  more  than  the  faults  of  an  European  courier,  with 
none  of  his  capacities. 

0,  golden-sleeved  Commander  of  the  Faithful,  what 
a  prelude  to  your  praises.  For  Mohammad  was  the 
best  we  saw,  and  so  agreed  all  who  knew  him.  Dogberry 
was  already  his  Laureate.  Mohammad  was  truly  "  tolera 
ble  and  not  to  be  endured."  He  was  ignorant,  vain,  and 
cowardly,'  but  fairly  honest, — extremely  good-humored, 
and  an  abominable  cook.  He  was  a  devout  Muslim,  and 
had  a  pious  abhorrence  of  ham.  His  deportment  was 
grave  and  pompous,  blending  the  Turkish  and  Egyptian 
elements  of  his  parentage.  Like  a  child  he  shrunk  and 
shriveled  under  the  least  pain  or  exposure.  But  he  loved 
'he high  places  and  the  sweet  morsels ;  and  to  be  called  of 


THE    DRAGOMEN.-  31 


men,  Effendi,  dilated  his   soul   with  delight.      He   was 
always  well  dressed  in  the  Egyptian  manner,  and  bent  in 
awful  reverence  before. "  them  old  Turks"  who,  surrounded 
by  a  multitudinous  hareem,  and  an  army  of  slaves,  were-  . 
the  august  peerage  of  his  imagination. 

His  great  glory,  however,  was  a  golden-sleeved  bour- 
nouse  of  goat's  hair,  presented  to  him  at  Damascus  by 
some  friendly  Howadji.  This  he  gathered  about  him  on  . 
all  convenient  occasions  to  create  an  impression, — at  the 
little  towns  on  the  Nile,  and  among  the  Arabs  of  the  desert, 
how  imposing  was  the  'golden-sleeved  Commander  !  Occa 
sionally  he  waited  at  dinner  in  this  robe — and  then  was 
never  Jove  so  superbly  served.  Yet  the  grandeur,  as 
usual,  was  inconsonant  with  agility,  and  many  a  wrecked 
dish  of  pudding  or  potatoes  paid  the  penalty  of  splendor. 

So  here  our  commander  of  the  faithful  steps  into  history, 
goldenly  arrayed.  Let  him  not  speak  for  himself.  For, 
although  his  English  was  intelligible  and  quite  sufficient, 
yet  he  recognized  no  auxiliary  but  " be"  and  no  tense  but 
the  present.  Hence,  when  he  wished  to  say  that  the  to 
bacco  would  be  milder  when  it  had  absorbed  the  water, 
he  darkly  suggested,  "He  be  better  when  he  be  drink 
Jiis  water ;"  and  a  huge  hulk  of  iron  lying  just  outside 
Cairo,  was  "the  steamer's  saucepan  ;"  being  the  boiler  of 
a  Suez  steamer.  Nor  will  the  pacha  forget  that  sunny 
Syrian  morning,  when  the  commander  led  us  far  and  far 
'  out  of  our  way  for  a  "  short  cut."  Wandering,  lost,  and 
tangled  in  flaunting  flowers,  through  long  valleys  and  up 
steep  hillsides,  we  emerged  at  length  upon  the  path  which 


32  NILE    NOTES. 


we  ought  never  to  have  left,  and  the  good  commander 
lighting  his  chibouque  with  the  air  of  a  general  lighting 
his  cigar  after  victory,  announced  impressively,  "  I  be 
found  that  way  by  my  sense,  by  my  head !"  Too  vain  to 
ask  or  to  learn,  he  subjected  us  to  the  same  inconveniences 
day  after  day,  for  the  Past  disappears  from  the  dragomanic 
mind  as  utterly  as  yesterday's  landscape  from  his  eye. 

The  moon  brightened  the  golden  sleeve  that  first  Nile 
evening,  as  the  commander  descended  the  steep  bank, 
superintending  the  embarking  of  the  luggage ;  and  while 
he  spreads  the  cloth  and  the  crew  gather  about  the  kit 
chen  to  sing,  we  will  hang  in  our  gallery  the  portrait  of 
his  coadjutor,  Hadji  Hamed,  the  cook. 


iv 


•  c^#Tf^-f^, 
III. 


ti  lUm*ft* 


I  WAS  donkeying  one  morning  through  the  bazaars  of 
Cairo,  looking  up  at  the  exquisitely  elaborated  overhanging 
lattices,  wondering  if  the  fences  of  Paradise  were  not  so 
rarely  enwrought,  dreaming  of  the  fair  Persian  slave, 
of  the  Princess  Shemselnihar,  the  three  ladies  of  Bagdad, 
and  other  mere  star  dust,  my  eye  surfeiting  itself  the 
while  with  forms  and  costumes  that  had  hitherto  existed 
only  in  poems  and  pictures,  when  I  heard  suddenly,  "  Have 
you  laid  in  any  potatoes?"  and  beheld  beaming  elderly 
John  Bull  by  my  side. 

"  It  occurred  to  me,"  said  he,  "  that  the  long  days  upon 
the  Nile  might  be  a  little  monotonous,  and  I  thought  the 
dinner  would  be  quite  an  event." 

"  Allah!"  cried  I,  as  the  three  ladies  of  Bagdad  faded 
upon  my  fancy,  "  I  thought  we  should  live  on  sunsets  on 
the  Nile." 

The  beaming  elderly  Bull  smiled  quietly  and  glanced  at 
his  gentle  rotundity,  while  I  saw  bottles,  boxes,  canisters, 
baskets,  and  packages  of  all  sizes  laid  aside  in  the  shop — 
little  anti-monotonous  arrangements  for  the  Nile. 

B* 


34  NILE    NOTES. 


"  I  hope  you  have  a  good  cook,"  said  John  Bull,  as  he 
moved  placidly  away  upon  his  donkey,  and  was  lost  in  the 
dim  depths  of  the  bazaar. 

Truly  we  were  loved  of  the  Prophet,  for  our  cook  was 
also  a  Mohammad,  an  Alexandrian,  and  doubtless  espe 
cially  favored,  not  for  his  name's  sake  only,  but  because 
he  had  been  a  pilgrim  to  Mecca,  and  hence  a  Hadji  forever 
after.  It  is  a  Mohammadan  title,  equivalent  to  our  "  ma 
jor"  and  "  colonel"  as  a  term  of  honor,  with  this  difference, 
that  with  us  it  ,is  not  always  necessary  to  have  been  a  cap^ 
tain  to  be  called  such ;  but  in  Arabia  is  no  man  a  Hadji 
who  has  not  performed  the  Mecca  pilgrimage.  Whether  a 
pilgrimage  to  Paris,  and  devotion  to  sundry  shrines  upon 
the  Boulevards,  had  not  been  as  advantageous  to  Hadji 
Hamed  as  kissing  the  holy  Mecca-stone,  was  a  speculation 
which  we  did  not  indulge  ;  for  his  cuisine  was  admirable. 

Yet  I  sometimes  fancied  the  long  lankness  of  the  Hadji 
Hamed's  figure,  streaming  in  his  far-flowing  whiteness  of 
garment  up  the  Boulevards,  and  claiming  kindred  with  the 
artistes  of  the  "Cafe*"  or  of  the  "Maison  doree."  They 
would  needs  have  sacre  bleu'd.  Yet  might  the  Hadji  have 
well  challenged  them  to  the  "  Kara  Kooseh,"  or  "  Warah 
Mahshee,"  or  the  "  Yakhnee,"  nor  feared  the  result.  Those 
are  the  cabalistic  names  of  stuffed  gourds,  of  a  kind  of  mince- 
pie  in  a  pastry  of  cabbage  leaves,  and  of  a  stewed  meat  sea 
soned  with  chopped  onions.  Nor  is  the  Christian  palate 
so  hopelessly  heretic  that  it  can  not  enjoy  those  genuine 
Muslim  morsels.  For  we  are  nothing  on  the  Nile  if  not 
Eastern.  The  Egyptians  like  sweet  dishes;  even  fowls 


HADJI    HAMED.  35 


they  stuff  with  raisins,  and  the  rich  conclude  their  repasts 
with  draughts  of  khushaf— - a  water  boiled  with  raisins 
and  sugar,  and  flavored  with  rose.  Mr.  Lane  says  it  is 
the  "  sweet  water", of  the  Persians. 

And  who  has  dreamed  through  the  Arabian  Night's  that 
qould  eat  without  a  thrill,  lamb  stuffed  with  pistachio 
nuts,  or  quaff  sherbet  of  roses,  haply  of  violet,  without  a 
vision  of  Haroun's  pavilion  and  his  lovely  ladies  ?  Is  a 
pastry  cook's  shop,  a  mere  pastry  cook's  shop  when  yon 
eat  cheesecakes  there  ?  Shines  not  the  Syrian  sun  sud 
denly  over  it,  making  all  the  world  Damascus,  and  all 
people  Agibr  and  Benreddin  Hassan,  and  the  lady  of  beau 
ty  ?  Even  in  these  slightest  details  no  region  is  so  purely 
the  property  of  the  imagination  as  the  East.  We  know  it 
only  in  poetry,  and  although  there  is  dirt  and  direful  de 
formity,  the  traveler  sees  it  no  more  than  the  fast-flying 
swallow,  to  whom  the  dreadful  mountain  abysses  and 
dumb  deserts  are  but  soft  shadows  and  shining  lights  in 
his  air-seen  picture  of  the  world. 

The  materials  for  this  poetic  Eastern  larder  are  very 
few  upon  the  Nile;  chickens  and  mutton  are  the  staple," 
and  chance  pigeons  shot  on  the  shore,  during  a  morning's 
stroll.  The  genius  of  the  artiste  is  shown  in  his  adroit 
arrangement  and  concealment  of  this  monotonous  material. 
Hadji  Hamed's  genius  was  Italian,  and  every  dinner 
was  a  success.  He  made  every  dinner  the  event  which 
Bull  was  convinced  it  would  be,  or  ought  to  be  ;  and,  per 
haps,  after  all,  the  Hadji's  soft  custard  was  much  the 
same  as  the  sunset  diet  of  which,  In  those  Cairo  days,  I 
dreamed. 


NILE    NOTES 


Our  own  larder  was  very  limited ;  for  as  we  sailed 
slowly  along  those  shores  of  sleep,  we  observed  too  intense 
an  intimacy  of  the  goats  with  the  sheep. 

The  white  bearded  goats  wandered  too  much  at  their 
own  sweet  will  with  the  unsuspecting  lambs,  or  the  not 
all  unwilling  elderly  sheep.  The  natives  are  not  fastidi 
ous,  and  do  not  mind  a  mellow  goat  flavor.  They  drink  a 
favorite  broth  made  of  the  head,  feet,  skin,  wool,  and  hoofs, 
thrust  into  a  pot  and  half  boiled.  Then  they  eat  with  unc 
tion,  the  unctuous  remains.  We  began  bravely  with  roast 
and  boiled ;  but  orders  were  issued  at  length,  that  no  more 
sheep  should  be  bought,  so  sadly  convinced  were  the  Ho- 
wadji  that  evil  communications  corrupt  good  mutton. 

Yet  in  Herodotean  days,  the  goats  were  sacred  to  one 
part  of  Egypt  and  sheep  to  another.  The  Thebans  ab 
stained  from  sheep,  and  sacrificed  goats  only.  For  they 
said,  that  Hercules  was  very  desirous  of  seeing  Jupiter, 
but  Jupiter  was  unwilling  to  be  seen.  As  Hercules  per 
sisted,  however,  Jupiter  flayed  a  ram,  cut  off  the  head 
and  held  it  before  his  face,  and  having  donned  the  fleece, 
so  showed  himself  to  Hercules — hence,  our  familiar  Ju 
piter  Ammon. 

But  those  of  the  Mendesian  district,  still  says  Herodo 
tus,  abstained  from  goats  and  sacrificed  sheep.  For  they 
said  that  Pan  was  one  of  the  original  eight  gods,  and  their 
sculptors  and  painters  represented  him  with  the  face  and 
legs  of  a  goat.  Why  they  did  so,  Herodotus  prefers  not 
to  mention;  as,  indeed,  our  good  father  of  history  was 
so  careful  of  his  children's  morals,  that  he  usually  pre- 


HADJI    HAMED.  3? 


ferred  not  to  mention  precisely  what  they  most  wish  to 
know. 

It  is  curious  to  find  that  the  elder  Egyptians  had  the 
Jewish  and  Mohammadan  horror  of  swine.  The  swine 
herds  were  a  separate  race,  like  the  headsmen  of  some 
modern  lands,  and  married  among  themselves.  Herodotus 
knows,  as  usual,  why  swine  were  abhorred,  except  on  the 
festivals  of  the  moon  and  of  Bacchus,  but  as  usual  con 
siders  it  more  becoming  not  to  mention  the  reason. 

Is  it  not  strange,  as  we  sweep  up  the  broad  river,  to 
see  the  figure  of  that  genial,  garrulous,  old  gossip,  stalking 
vaguely  through  the  dim  morning  twilight  of  history, 
plainly  seeing  what  we  can  never  know,  audibly  convers 
ing  with  us  of  what  he  will,  but  ignoring  what  we  wish, 
and  answering  no  questions  forever  ?  One  of  the  profound- 
est  mysteries  of  the  Egyptian  belief,  and  in  lesser  de 
grees  of  all  antique  faiths,  constantly  and  especially  sym 
bolized  throughout  Egypt,  Herodotus  evidently  knew  per 
fectly  from  his  friendship  with  the  priests,  but  perpetu 
ally  his  conscience  dictates  silence — Amen,  0  venerable 
Father. 

I  knew  some  bold  Howadji  who  essayed  a  croco 
dile  banquet.  They  were  served  with  crocodile  chops  and 
steaks,  and  crocodile  boiled,  roasted,  and  stewed.  They 
talked  very  cheerfully  of  it  afterward ;  but  each  one  pri 
vately  confessed  that  the  flesh  tasted  like  abortive  lobster, 
saturated  with  musk. 

Hadji  Hamed  cooked  no  crocodile,  and  had  no  golden- 
sleeved  garment.  He  wore  'eree  or  cotton  drawers,  past 


38  NILE   NOTES. 


their  prime,  and  evidently  originally  made  for  lesser  legs. 
That  first  evening  he  fluttered  about  the  deck  in  a  long 
white  robe,  like  a  solemn-faced  wag  playing  ghost  in  a 
churchyard.  By  day  he  looked  like  a  bird  of  prey,  with 
long  legs  and  a  hooked  bill. 


IV.     ; 

i  Skia  iHflB* 


WHILE  the  Hadji  Hamed  fluttered  about  the  deck,  and 
the  commander  served  his  kara  kooseh,  the  crew  gathered 
around  the  bow  and  sang. 

The  stillness  of  early  evening  had  spelled  the  river,  nor 
was  the  strangeness  dissolved  by  that  singing.  The  men 
crouched  in  a  circle  upon  the  deck,  and  the  reis,  or  cap 
tain,  thrummed  the  tarabuka,  or  Arab  drum,  made  of  a 
fish-skin  stretched  upon  a  gourd.  Raising  their  hands, 
th6  crew  clapped  them  above  their  heads,  in  perfect  time, 
not  ringingly,  but  with  a  dead  dull  thump  of  the  palms- — 
moving  the  whole  arm  to  bring  them  together.  They 
swung  their  heads  from  side  to  side,  and  one  clanked  a 
chain  in  unison.  -  So  did  these  people  lorig  before  the  Ibis 
nestled  to  this  bank,  long  before  there  Were  Americans  to 
listen. 

For  when  Diana  was  divine,  and  thousands  of  men  and 
women  came  floating  down  the  Nile  in  barges  to  celebrate 
her  festival,  they  sang  and  clapped,  played  the  castanets 
and  flute,  stifling  the  voices  of  Arabian  and  Lybian  echoes 
with  a  wild  roar  of  revelry.  They,  too,  sang  a  song  that 


*"•••• 


40  NILE   NOTES. 


came  to  them  from  an  unknown  antiquity,  Linus,  their 
first  and  only  song,  the  dirge  of  the  son  of  the  first  king  of 
Egypt. 

This  might  have  been  that  dirge  that  the  crew  sang  in 
a  mournful  minor.  Suddenly  one  rose  and  led  the  song, 
in  sharp  jagged  sounds,  formless  as  lightning.  "  He  fills 
me  the  glass  full  and  gives  me  to  drink,"  sang  the  leader, 
and  the  low  measured  chorus  throbbed  after  him,  "  Hum- 
meleager  malooshee."  The  sounds  were  not  a  tune,  but  a 
kind  of  measured  recitative.  It  went  on  constantly  faster 
and  faster,  exciting  them,  as  the  Shakers  excite  them 
selves,  until  a  tall  gaunt  Nubian  rose  in  the  moonlight 
and  danced  in  the  center  of  the  circle,  like  a  gay  ghoul 
among  his  fellows. 

The  dancing  was  monotonous,  like  the  singing,  a  sim 
ple  jerking  of  the  muscles.  He  shook  his  arms  from  the 
elbows  like  a  Shaker,  and  raised  himself  alternately  upon 
both  feet.  Often  the  leader  repeated  the  song  as  a  solo,  then 
the  voices  died  away,  the  ghoul  crouched  again,  and  the 
hollow  throb  of  the  tarabuka  continued  as  an  accompani 
ment  to  the  distant  singing  of  Nero's  crew,  that  came  in 
fitful  gusts  through  the  little  grove  of  sharp  slim  masts— 

"  If  you  meet  my  sweetheart, 
Give  her  my  respects." 

The  melancholy  monotony  of  this  singing  in  unison,  har 
monized  with  the  vague  feelings  of  that  first  Nile  night. 
The  simplicity  of  the  words  became  the  perpetual  child- 


THE    IBIS    SINGS.  41 

ishness  of  the  men,  so  that  it  was  not  ludicrous.  It  was 
clearly  the  music  and  words  of  a  race  just  better  than 
the  brutes.  If  a  poet  could  translate  into  sound  the  ex 
pression  of  a  fine  dog's  face,  or  that  of  a  meditative  cow, 
the  Howadji  would  fancy  that  he  heard  Nile  music.  For, 
after  all,  that  placid  and  perfect  animal  expression  would 
be  melancholy,  humanity.  And  with  the  crew  only  the 
sound  was  sad ;  they  smiled  and  grinned  and  shook  their 
heads  with  intense  satisfaction.  The  evening  and  the 
scene  were  like  a  chapter  of  Mungo  Park.  I  heard  the 
African  mother  sing  to  him  as  he  lay  sick  upon  her  mats, 
and  the  world  and  history  forgotten,  those  strange  sad 
sounds  drew  me  deep  into  the  dumb  mystery  of  Africa. 

But  the  musical  Howadji  will  find  a  fearful  void  in  his 
Eastern  life.  The  Asiatic  has  no  ear  and  no  soul  for  music. 
Like  other  savages  and  children,  he  loves  a  noise  and  he 
plays  on  shrill  pipes — on  the  tarabuka,  on  the  tar  or  tam 
bourine,  and  a  sharp  one-stringed  fiddle,  or  rabab.  Of 
course  in  your  first  oriental  days,  you  will  decline  no  invi 
tation,  but  you  will  grow  gradually  deaf  to  all  entreaties 
of  friends  or  dragomen  to  sally  forth  and  hear  music.  You 
will  remind  him  that  you  did  not  come  to  the  East  to  go 
to  Bedlam. 

This  want  of  music  is  not  strange,  for  silence  is  natural 
to  the  East  and  the  tropics.  When,  sitting  quietly  at 
home,  in  midsummer,  sweeping  ever  sunward  in  the  grow 
ing  heats,  we  at  length  reach  the  tropics  in  the  fixed  fervor 
of  a  July  noon,  the  day  is  rapt,  the  birds  are  still,  the  wind 
swoons,  and  the  burning  sun  glares  silence  on  the  world. 


42  NILE   NOTES. 


The  Orient  is  that  primeval  and  perpetual  noon.  That 
very  heat  explains  to  you  the  voluptuous  elaboration  of  its 
architecture,  the  brilliance  of  its  costume,  the  picturesque- 
ness  of  its  life.  But  no  Mozart  was  needed  to  sow  Per 
sian  gardens  with  roses  breathing  love  and  beauty,  no  Bee 
thoven  to  build  mighty  Himalayas,  on  Rossini  to  spar 
kle  and  sing  with  the  birds  and  streams.  Those  realities 
are  there,  of  which  the  composers  are  the  poets  to  Western 
imaginations.  In  the  East,  you  feel  and  see  music,  but 
hear  it  never. 

Yet  in  Cairo  and  Damascus  the  poets  sit  at  the  cafes, 
surrounded  by  the  forms  and  colors  of  their  songs,  and  re 
cite  the  romances  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  or  of  Aboo  Zeyd, 
or  of  Antar,  with  no  other  accompaniment  than  the  Tar  or 
the  Rabab,  then  called  the  "  Poet's  Viol,"  and  in  the  same 
monotonous  strain.  Sometimes  the  single  strain  is  touch 
ing,  as  when  on  our  way  to  Jerusalem,  the  too  enamored 
camel-driver,  leading  the  litter  of  the  fair  Armenian,  sad 
dened  the  silence  of  the  desert  noon  with  a  Syrian  song. 
The  high  shrill  notes  trembled  and  rang  on  the  air.  The 
words  said  little,  but  the  sound  was  a  lyric  of  sorrow. 
The  fair  Armenian  listened  silently  as  the  caravan  wound 
slowly  along,  her  eyes  musily  fixed  upon  the  East,  where 
the  flower-fringed  Euphrates  flows  through  Bagdad  to  the 
sea.  The  fair  Armenian  had  her  thoughts  and  the  camel- 
driver  his ;  also  the  accompanying  Howadji  listened  and 
had  theirs. 

The  Syrian  songs  of  the  desert  are  very  sad.  They 
harmonize  with  the  burning  monotony  of  the  landscape 


THE  IBIS   SINGS.  43 


in  their  long  recitative  and  shrill  wail.  The  camel  steps 
more  willingly  to  that  music,  but  the  Howadji  swaying 
upon  his  back  is  tranced  in  the  sound,  so  naturally  born 
of  silence. 

Meanwhile  our  crew  are  singing,  although  we  have 
slid  upon  their  music,  and  the  moonlight,  far  forward  into 
the  desert.  But  these  are  the  forms  and  feelings  that 
their  singing  suggested.  While  they  sang  I  wandered  over 
Sahara,  and  was  lost  in  the  lonely  Libyan  hills,-— a  thou 
sand  simple  stories,  a  thousand  ballads  of  love  and  woe 
trooped  like  drooping  birds  through  the  sky-like  vagueness 
of  my  mind.  Rosamond  Grey,  and  the  child  of  Elle 
passed  phantom-like  with  vailed  faces, — for  love,  and  sor 
row,  and  delight  are  cosmopolitan,  building  bowers  indis 
criminately  of  palm-trees  or  of  pines. 

The  voices  died  away  like  the  Muezzins',  whose  cry  is 
the  sweetest  and  most  striking  of  all  Eastern  sounds.  It 
trembles  in  long  rising  and  falling  cadences  from  the  bal 
cony  of  the  Minaret,  more  humanly  alluring  than  bells, 
and  more  respectful  of  the  warm  stillness  of  Syrian  and 
Egyptian  days.  Heard  in  Jerusalem  it  has  especial  power. 
You  sit  upon  your  housetop  reading  the  history  whose 
profoundest  significance  is  simple  and  natural  in  that 
inspiring  clime — and  as  your  eye  wanders  from  the  aeriel 
dome  of  Omar,  beautiful  enough  to  have  been  a  dome  of 
Solomon's  Temple,  and  over  the  olives  of  Grethsemane 
climbs  the  Mount  of  Olives — the  balmy  air  is  suddenly 
filled  with  a  murmurous  cry  like  a  cheek  suddenly  rose- 
suffused — a  sound  near,  and  far,  and  everywhere,  but  soft 


44  NILE   NOTES. 


and  vibrating  and  alluring,  until  you  would  fain  don  tur 
ban,  kaftan,  and  slippers,  and  kneeling  in  the  shadow  of  a 
cypress  on  the  sun-flooded  marble  court  of  Omar,  would  be 
the  mediator  of  those  faiths,  nor  feel  yourself  a  recreant 
Christian. 

Once  I  heard  the  Muezzin  cry  from  a  little  village  on 
the  edge  of  the  desert,  in  the  starlight  before  the  dawn. 
It  was  only  a  wailing  voice  in  the  air.  The  spirits  of  the 
desert  were  addressed  in  their  own  language,— or  was  it 
themselves  lamenting,  like  water  spirits  to  the  green 
boughs  overhanging  them,  that  they  could  never  know  the 
gladness  of  the  green  world,  but  were  forever  demons  and 
denizens  of  the  desert  ?  But  the  tones  trembled  away 
without  echo  or  response  into  the  starry  solitude;— Al-la-hu 
Ak-bar,  Al-la-hu  Ak-bar ! 

So  with  songs  and  pictures,  with  musings,  and  the 
dinner  of  a  Mecca  pilgrim,  passed  the  first  evening  upon 
the  Nile.  The  Ibis  clung  to  the  bank  at  Boulak  all  that 
night.  "We  called  her  Ibis  because  the  sharp  lateen  sails 
are  most  like  wings,  and  upon  the  Egyptian  Nile  was  no 
winged  thing  of  fairer  fame.  We  prayed  Osiris  that  the 
law  of  his  religion  might  yet  be  enforced  against  winds 
and  waves.  For  whoever  killed  an  Ibis,  by  accident  or 
willfully,  necessarily  suffered  death. 

The  Lotus  is  a  sweeter  name,  but  consider  all  the  Poets 
Who  have  so  baptized  their  boats !  Besides,  soothly  say 
ing,  this  Dahabieh  of  ours,  hath  no  flower  semblance,  and 
is  rather  fat  than  fairy.  The  zealous  have  even  called 
their  craft  Papyrus,  but  poverty  has  no  law. 


V. 


WE  are  not  quite  off,  yet.  Eastern  life  is  leisurely,  It 
has  the  long  crane  neck  of  enjoyment — and  you,  impatient 
reader,  must  leave  your  hasty  habits,  and  no  longer  bolt 
your  pleasure  as  you  do  your  Tremont  or  Astor  dinner,  but 
taste  it  all  the  way  down,  as  our  turbaned  friends  do. 
Ask  your  dragoman  casually,  and  he  will  regale  you 
with  choice  instances  of  this  happy  habitude  of  the  Orien 
tals — or  read  the  Arabian  Nights  in  the  original,  or  under 
stand  literally  the  romances  that  the  Poets  recite  at  the 
Cafes,  and  you  will  learn  how  much  you  are  born  to  lose — 
being  born  as  you  were,  an  American,  with  no  time  to 
live. 

Your  Nile  crew  is  a  dozen  Nondescripts.  They  are 
Arabs — Egyptians — Nubians  and  half-breeds  of  all  kinds. 
They  wear  a  white  or  red  cap,  and  a  long  flowing  garment 
which  the  Howadji  naturally  calls  "  Night-gown,"  but 
which  they  term  "  Zaaboot" — although  as  Mrs.  Bull  said, 
she  thought  Night-gown  the  better  name.  It  is  a  con 
venient  dress  for  river  mariners,  for  they  have  only  to 
throw  it  off,  and  are  at  once  ready  to  leap  into  the  stream 


46  NILE    NOTES. 


if  the  boat  grounds — with  no  more  incumbrance  than  Un 
dine's  uncle  Kuhleborn  always  had.  On  great  occasions  of 
reaching  a  town  they  wear  the  'eree  or  drawers,  and  a 
turban  of  white  cotton. 

Our  Reis  was  a  placid  little  Nubian,  with  illimitable 
lips,  and  a  round,  soft  eye.  He  was  a  feminine  creature, 
and  crept  felinely  about  the  boat  on  his  little  spongy  feet, 
often  sitting  all  day  upon  the  bow,  somnolently  smoking 
his  chibouque^  and  letting  us  run  aground.  He  was  a 
Hadji  too;  but,  except  that  he  did  no  work,  seemed  to 
have  no  especial  respect  from  the  crew.  He  put  his  finger 
in  the  dish  with  them,  and  fared  no  better.  Had  he  been 
a  burly  brute,  the  savages  would  have  feared  him ;  and, 
with  them,  fear  is  the  synonym  of  respect. 

The  grisly  Ancient  Mariner  was  the  real  captain — an 
old,  gray  Egyptian,  who  crouched  all  day  long  over  the 
tiller,  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth,  and  his  firm  eye  fixed 
upon  the  river  and  the  shore.  He  looked  like  a  heap  of 
ragged  blankets,  smoldering  away  internally,  and  emitting 
smoke  at  a  chance  orifice.  But  at  evening  he  descended 
to  the  deck,  took  a  cup  of  coffee,  and  chatted  till  mid 
night.  As  long  as  the  wind  held  to  the  sail,  he  held  to  the 
tiller.  The  Ancient  Mariner  was  the  real  worker  of  the 
Ibis,  and  never  made  faces  at  it,  although  the  crew  be 
moaned  often  enough  their  hard  fate.  Of  course,  he  tried 
to  cheat  at  first,  but  when  he  felt  the  eye  of  the  Pacha 
looking  through  him  and  turning  up  his  little  cunning,  he 
tried  it  no  more,  or  only  spasmodically,  at  intervals,  from 
habit. 


THE    CREW.  41 


Brawny,  one-eyed  Seyd  was  first  officer,  the  leader  of 
the  working  chorus  and  of  the  hard  pulling  and  pushing. 
He  had  put  out  his  own  eye,  like  other  Egyptians,  many 
of  whom  did  the  same  office  to  their  children  to  escape  Mo 
hammad  Alee's  conscription.  He  was  a  good-natured, 
clumsy  boor — a  being  in  the  ape  stage  of  development. 
He  proved  the  veracity  of  the  "  Vestiges,"  that  we  begin 
in  a  fishy  state,  and  advance  through  the  tailed  and 
winged  ones.  "  We  have  had  fins,  we  may  have  wings." 
I  doubt  if  Seyd  had  yet  fairly  taken  in  his  tail — he  was 
growing.  Had  I  been  a  German  naturalist,  I  should,  have 
seized  the  good  Seyd  and  presented  him  to  some  "  Durch- 
lauchtiger,"  king  or  kaiser,  as  an  ourang-outang  from  the 
white  Nile;  and  I  am  sure  the  Teutons  would  have  de 
creed  it,  a  "  sehr  ausgezeichnete"  specimen. 

Seyd,  I  fear,  was  slightly  sensual.  He  had  ulterior 
views  upon  the  kitchen  drippings.  While  the  Howadji 
dined,  he  sat  like  an  ourang-outang,  gazing  with  ludicrous 
intensity  at  the  lickerous  morsels,  then  shifted  into  some 
clumsier  squat,  so  that  the  Howadji  could  not  maintain 
becoming  gravity.  At  times  he  imbibed  cups  of  coffee 
privately  in  the  kitchen  regions,  then  gurgled  his  cocoa- 
nut  nargileh  with  spasmodic  vigor. 

Seyd  fulfilled  other  functions  not  strictly  within  his 
official  walk.  He  washed  the  deck,  brought  coals  to  the 
chibouque,  cleaned  the  knives  and  scraped  kettles  and  pans. 
But  after  much  watching,  I  feared  that  Seyd  was  going 
backward- — developing  the  wrong  way,  for  he  became  more 
baboonish  and  less  human  everyday.  His  feet  were  in- 


48  NILE   NOTES. 


credible.  I  had  not  seen  the  colossi  then.  Generally,  he 
was  barefooted.  But  sometimes,  0  goddess  of  Paris  kids  ! 
he  essayed  slippers.  Then  no  bemired  camel  ever  extri 
cated  himself  more  ponderously  pedaled.  These  leather 
cases,  that  might  have  been  heir-looms  of  Memnon,  were 
the  completion  of  his  full  dress.  Ah !  Brummell !  Seyd 
en  grande  tenue  was  a  stately  spectacle. 

There  was  Saleh  or  Satan,  a  cross  between  the  porcu 
pine  and  the  wild-cat,  whom  I  disliked  as  devoutly  as  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Duck  did  the  devil.  And  Aboo  Seyd,  a  little 
old-maidish  Bedoueen,  who  told  wonderful  stories  to  the 
crew  and  prayed  endlessly.  He  was  very  vain  and  dire- 
fully  ugly,  short  and  speckled  and  squat.  On  the  Nile  I 
believed  in  necromancy,  and  knew  Aboo  Seyd  to  be  really 
a  tree-toad  humanized.  I  speculated  vainly  upon  his 
vanity.  It  was  the  only  case  where  I  never  could  suspect 
the  secret. 

Great  gawky  Abdallah  then,  God's  favorite  as  his 
name  imports,  and  a  trusty  mastiff  of  a  man.  ,  Abdallah 
had  few  human  characteristics,  and  was  much  quizzed  by 
the  crew  under  Satan's  lead.  He  was  invaluable  for 
plunging  among  the  grass  and  bushes,  or  into  the  water 
for  pigeons  which  the  Pacha  had  shot.  And  he  loved  his 
townsman  Aboo  Tar,  or  Congo,  as  we  called  him,  as  if  his 
heart  were  as  huge  as  his  body.  Congo  was  the  youngest 
and  brightest  of  the  cre.w.  He  was  black  and  slim,  and 
although  not  graceful,  moved  rapidly  and  worked  well. 
The  little  Congo  was  the  only  one  of  the  crew  who  in 
spired  human  interest. 


THE    CREW.  49 


They  are  all  bad  workers,  and  lazy  exceedingly. 
Never  was  seen  such  confused,  imbecility  of  action  and 
noise,  as  in  the  shifting  of  sail.  The  ropes  are  twisted 
and  tangled,  and  the  red  and  black  legs  are  twisted  and 
tangled  in  the  trouble  to  extricate  them.  Meanwhile  the 
boat  comes  into  the  wind,  the  great  sails  flap  fiercely,  mad 
to  be  deprived  of  it ;  the  boats  that  had  drifted  behind 
come  up,  even  pass,  and  the  Pacha,  wrapped  in  his  capote, 
swears  a  little  to  ease  his  mind.  ^ 

Yet  that  Nile  poet,  Harriet  Martineau,  speaks  of  the 
"savage  faculty"  in  Egypt.  But  "  faculty"  is  a  "Western 
gift  Savages  with  faculty  may  become  a  leading  race. 
But  a  leading  race  never  degenerates,  so  long  as  faculty 
remains.  The  Egyptians  and  Easterns  are  not  savages, 
they  are  imbeciles.  It  is  the  English  fashion  to  laud  the 
Orient,  and  to  prophesy  a  renewed  grandeur,  as  if  the 
East  could  ever  again  be  as  bright  as  at  sunrise.  The 
Easterns  are  picturesque  and  handsome,  as  is  no  nation 
with  faculty.  The  c'oarse  costume  of  a  Nile  sailor  shames 
in  dignity  and  grace  the  most  elaborate  toilet  of  Western  sa 
loons.  It  is  drapery  whose  grace  all  men  admire,  and  which 
all  artists  study  in  the  antique.  Western  life  is  clean  and 
comely  and  comfortable,  but  it  is  not  picturesque. 

Therefore,  if  you  would  enjoy  the  land,  you  must  be  a 
poet,  and  not  a  philpsopher.  To  the  hurrying  Howadji, 
the  prominent  interest  is  the  picturesque  one.  For  any 
other  purpose,  he  need  not  be  there.  Be  a  pilgrim  of 
beauty  and  not  of  morals  or  of  politics,  if  you  would  real 
ize  your  dream.  History  sheds  moonlight  over  the  an- 

C 


50  NILE    NOTES. 


tique  years  of  Egypt,  and  by  that  light  you  can  not  study. 
Believe  before  you  begin,  that  the  great  Asian  mystery 
which  D'Israeli's  mild-minded  Tancred  sought  to  pene 
trate,  is  the  mystery  of  death.  If  you  do  not,  then  settle 
it  upon  the  data  you  have  at  home,  for  unless  you  come 
able  and  prepared  for  profoundest  research  and  observa 
tion,  a  rapid  journey  through  a  land  whose  manners  and 
language  you  do  not  understand,  and  whose  spirit  is  ut 
terly  novel  to  you,  will  ill  qualify  you  to  discourse  of  its 
fate  and  position. 

That  the  East  will  never  regenerate  itself,  cotempo- 
rary  history  shows ;  nor  has  any  nation  of  history  culmi 
nated  twice.  The  spent  summer  reblooms  no  more — the 
Indian  summer  is  but  a  memory  and  a  delusion.  The 
sole  hope  of  the  East  is  "Western  inoculation.  The  child 
must  suckle  the  age  of  the  parent,  and  even  "  Medea's 
wondrous  alchemy"  will  not  restore  its  peculiar  prime.  If 
,the  East  awakens,  it  will  be  no  longer  in  the  turban  and 
red  slippers,  but  in  hat  and  boots.  The  West  is  the  sea 
that  advances  forever  upon  the  shore,  the  shore  can  not 
stay  it,  but  becomes  the  bottom  of  the  ocean.  The  West 
ern,  who  lives  in  the  Orient,  does  not  assume  the  kaftan 
and  the  baggy  breeches,  and  those  of  his  Muslim  neigh 
bors  shrink  and  disappear  before  his  coat  and  pantaloons. 
The  Turkish  army  is  clothed  like  the  armies  of  Europe. 
The  grand  Turk  himself,  Mohammad's  vicar,  the  Com 
mander  of  the  Faithful,  has  laid  away  the  magnificence 
of  Haroun  Alrashid,  and  wears  the  simple  red  Tarboosh, 
and  a  stiff  suit  of  military  blue.  Cairo  is  an  English  sta- 


THE   CREW.  51 


tion  to  India,  and  the  Howadji  does  not  drink  sherbet  upon 
the  pyramids,  but  champagne.  The  choice  Cairo  of  our 
Eastern  imagination  is  contaminated  with  carriages.  They 
are  showing  the  secrets  of  the  streets  to  the  sun.  Their 
silence  is  no  longer  murmurous,  but  rattling.  The  Uzbee- 
keeyah,  public  promenade  of  Cairo,  is  a  tea  garden,  of  a 
Sunday  afternoon  crowded  with  ungainly  Franks,  listen 
ing  to  bad  music.  Ichabod,  Ichabod !  steam  has  towed 
the  Mediterranean  up  the  Nile  to  Boulak,  and  as  you  move 
on  to  Cairo,  through  the  still  surviving  masquerade  of  the 
Orient,  the  cry  of  the  melon-merchant  seems  the  signifi 
cant  cry  of  each  sad-eyed  Oriental,  "  Consoler  of  the  em 
barrassed,  0  Pips !" 

The  century  has  seen  the  failure  of  the  Eastern  experi 
ment,  headed  as  it  is  not  likely  to  be  headed  again,  by  an 
able  and  wise  leader.  Mohammad  Alee  had  mastered 
Egypt  and  Syria,  and  was  mounting  the  steps  of  the  sul 
tan's  throne.  Then  he  would  have  marched  to  Bagdad, 
and  sat  down  in  Haroun  Alrashid's  seat,  to  draw  again 
broader  and  more  deeply  the  lines  of  the  old  Eastern  em 
pire.  But  the  West  would  not  suffer  it.  Even  had  it  done 
so,  the  world  of  Mohammad  Alee  would  have  crumbled  to 
chaos  again  when  he  died,  for  it  existed  only  by  his  im 
perial  will,  and  not  by  the  perception  of  the  people. 

At  this  moment  the  East  is  the  El  Dorado  of  European 
political  hope.  No  single  power  dares  to  grasp  it,  but  at 
last  England  and  Russia  will  meet  there,  face  to  face, 
and  the  lion  and  the  polar  bear  will  shiver  the  desert  si 
lence  with  the  roar  of  their  struggle.  It  will  be  the  re- 


52  NILE    NOTES. 


turn  of  the  children  to  claim  the  birthplace.  They  may 
quarrel  among  themselves,  but  whoever  wins,  will  intro 
duce  the  life  of  the  children  and  not  of  the  parent.  A  pos 
session  and  a  province  it  may  be,  but  no  more  an  indepen 
dent  empire.  Father  Ishmael  shall  be  a  sheikh  of  honor, 
but  of  dominion  no  longer,  and  sit  turbaned  in  the  chimney 
corner,  while  his  hatted  heirs  rule  the  house.  The  children 
will  cluster  around  him,  fascinated  with  his  beautiful  tra 
ditions,  and  curiously  compare  their  little  black  shoes  with 
his  red  slippers. 

Here,  then,  we  throw  overboard  from  the  Ibis  all 
solemn  speculation,  reserving  only  for  ballast  this  chapter 
of  erudite  Eastern  reflection  and  prophecy.  The  shade  of 
the  Poet  Martineau  moves  awfully  along  these  clay  ter 
races,  and  pauses  minatory  under  the  palms,  declaring 
that  "  He  who  derives  from  his  travels  nothing  but  pic 
turesque  and  amusing  impressions  *  *  *  uses  like  a 
child,  a  most  serious  and  manlike  privilege." 

It  is  reproving,  but  some  can  paint,  and  some  can 
preach,  Poet  Harriet,  so  runs  the  world  away.  That 
group  of  palms  waving  feathery  in  the  moonlight  over  the 
gleaming  river  is  more  soul-solacing  than  much  conclu 
sive  speculation. 


VI. 


AT  noon  the  wind  rose.  The  Ibis  shook  out  her  wings, 
spread  them  and  stood  into  the  stream.  Nero  was  already 
off. 

Stretching  before  us  southward  were  endless  groups 
of"  masts  and  sails.  Palms  fringed  the  western  shore, 
and  on  the  east,  rose  the  handsome  summer  palaces  of 
Pachas  and  rich  men.  They  were  deep  retired  in  full 
foliaged  groves  and  gardens,  or  rose  white  and  shining 
directly  over  the  water.  The  verandahs  were  shaded  with 
cool,  dark-green  blinds,  and  spacious  steps  descended 
stately  to  the  water,  as  proudly  as  from  Venetian  palaces. 
Graceful  boats  lay  moored  to  the  marge,  the  lustrous  dark 
ness  of  acacias  shadowed  the  shore,  and  an  occasional 
sakia  or  water-wheel  began  the  monotonous  music  of  the 
river. 

Behind  us  from  the  city,  rose  the  alabaster  minarets 
of  the  citadel  Mosque— snow  spires  in  the  deep  blue — and 
the  aerial  elegance  of  the  minor  minarets  mingling  with 
palms,  that  seemed  to  grow  in  unknown  hanging-gardens 
of  delight,  were  already  a  graceful  arabesque  upon  the 


54  NILE    NOTES. 


sky.  The  pyramids  watched  us  as  we  went — staring 
themselves  stonily  into  memory  forever.  The  great  green 
plain  between  us,  came  gently  to  the  water,  over  whose 
calm  gleam  skimmed  the  Ibis  with  almost  conscious  de 
light  that  she  was  flying  to  the  South.  The  Howadji, 
meanwhile,  fascinated  with  the  fair  auspices  of  their  voy 
age,  sat  cross-legged  upon  Persian  carpets  sipping  mellow 
mocha,  and  smoking  the  cherry-sticked  chibouque. 

As  life  without  love,  said  the  Cairene  Poet  to  me  as 
I  ordered  his  Nargileh  to  be  refilled  with  Turnback— choice 
Persian  tobacco — is  the  chibouque  without  coffee.  And 
as  I  sipped  that  mocha,  and  perceived  that  for  the  first 
time  I  was  drinking  coffee,  I  felt  that  all  Hadji  Hamed's 
solemnity  and  painful  Mecca  pilgrimages  were  riot  pur 
poseless  nor  without  ambition.  Why  should  not  he  pre 
pare  coffee  for  the  choicest  coterie  of  houris  even  in  the 
Prophet's  celestial  pavilion?  For  a  smoother  sip  is  not 
offered  the  Prophet  by  his  fairest  favorite,  than  his  name 
sake  prepared,  and  his  other  namesake  offered  to  us  on 
each  Nile  day. 

The  mocha  is  so  fragrant  and  rich,  and  so  perfectly 
prepared,  that  the  sweetness  of  sugar  seems  at  length 
quite  coarse  and  unnecessary.  It  destroys  the  most  deli 
cate  delight  of  the  palate,  which  craves  at  last  the  purest 
flavor  of  the  berry,  and  tastes  all  Arabia  Felix  therein.  A 
glass  of  imperial  Tokay  in  Hungary,  and  a  fingan  of  mocha 
in  the  East,  are  the  most  poetic  and  inspiring  draughts. 
Whether  the  Greek  poets,  born  between  the  two,  did  not 
foreshadow  the  fascination  of  each,  when  they  celebrated 


THE    IBIS    FLIES.  55 

nectar  and  ambrosia  as  divine  delights,  I  leave  to  the 
most  erudite  Teutonic  commentator.  Sure  am  .1  that  the 
delight  of  well-prepared  mocha  transcends  the  sphere  of 
sense,  and  rises  into  a  spiritual  satisfaction — or  is  it  that 
mocha  is  the  magic  that  spiritualizes  sense  ? 

Yet  it  must  be  sipped  from  the  fingan  poised  in  the 
delicate  zarf.  The  fingan  is  a  small  blue  and  gold  cup, 
or  of  any  color,  of  an  egg's  caliber,  borne  upon  an  ex 
quisitely  wrought  support  of  gold  or  silver.  The  mouth 
must  slide  from  the  cup's  brim  to  the  amber  mouth-piece 
of  the  chibouque,  drawing  thence  azure  clouds  of  latakia, 
the  sweet  mild  weed  of  Syria.  Then,  0  wildered  Western, 
you  taste  the  Orient,  and  awake  in  dreams. 

So  waned  the  afternoon,  as  we  glided  gently  before  a 
failing  breeze,  between  the  green  levels  of  the  Nile  valley. 
The  river  was  lively  with  boats.  Dignified  Dahabieh 
sweeping  along  like  Pachas  of  importance  and  of  endless 
tails.  Crafty  little  Cangie,  smaller  barques,  creeping  on 
like  EfFendi  of  lesser  rank.  The  far  rippling  reaches  were 
white  with  the  sharp  saucy  sails,  bending  over  and  over, 
reproaching  the  water  for  its  resistance,  and,  like  us,  pur 
suing  the  South.  The  craft  was  of  every  kind.  Huge 
lumbering  country  boats,  freighted  with  filth  and  vermin, 
covered  with  crouching  figures  in  blankets,  or  laden  with 
grain;  or  there  were  boats  curiously  crowded,  the  little 
cabin  windows  overflowing  with  human  blackness  and 
semi-naked  boys  and  girls,  sitting  in  close  rows  upon  the 
deck. 

These  are  first  class  frigates  of  the  Devil's  navy.     They 


56  NILE    NOTES. 


are  slave  boats  floating  down  from  Dongola  and  Sennaar. 
The  wind  does  not  blow  for  them.  They  alone  are  not 
white  with  sails,  and  running  merrily  over  the  water,  but 
they  drift  slowly,  slowly  with  the  weary  beat  of  a  few  oars. 

The  little  slaves  stare  at  us  with  more  wonder  than  we 
look  at  them.  They  are  not  pensive  or  silent.  They  smile 
and  chat,  and  point  at  the  Howadji  and  the  novelties  of  the 
Nile  very  contentedly.  Not  one  kneels  and  inquires  if  he 
is  not  a  man  and  a  brother,  and  the  Venuses,  "carved  in 
ebony,"  seem  fully  satisfied  with  their  crisp,  closely  curl 
ing  hair,  smeared  with  castor  oil.  In  Egypt  and  the  East 
generally,  slavery  does  not  appear  so  sadly  as  elsewhere. 
The  contrasts  are  not  so  vivid.  It  seems  only  an  accident 
that  one  is  master  and  the  other  slave.  A  reverse  of  rela 
tions  would  not  appear  strange,  for  the  master  is  as  igno 
rant  and  brutal  as  the  servant. 

Yet  a  group  of  disgusting  figures  lean  and  lounge  upon 
the  upper  deck,  or  cabin  roof.  Nature,  in  justice  to  her 
self,  has  discharged  humanity  from  their  faces — only  the 
human  form  remains — for  there  is  nothing  so  revolting  as 
a  slave-driver  with  his  booty  bagged.  In  the  chase,  there 
may  be  excitement  and  danger,  but  the  chase  once  suc 
cessful,  they  sink  into  a  torpidity  of  badness.  But  this  is 
only  a  cloud  floating  athwart  the  setting  sun.  To  our 
new  Nile  eyes,  this  is  only  proof  that  there  are  crocodiles 
beyond — happily  not  so  repulsive,  for  they  are  not  in  the 
human  shape. 

The  slavers  passed  and  the  sun  set  over  the  gleaming 
river.  A  solitary  heron  stood  upon  a  sandy  point.  In  a 


THE    IBIS    FLIES.  5? 

broad  beautiful  bay  beyond,  the  thin  lines  of  masts  were 
drawn  dark  against  the  sky.  Palms,  and  the  dim  lines  of 
Arabian  hills  dreamed  in  the  tranquil  air,  a  few  boats 
clung  to  the  western  bank,  that  descended  in  easy  clay 
terraces  to  the  water,  their  sails  hanging  in  the  dying 
wind.  Suddenly  we  were  among  them,  close  under  the 
bank. 

The  moon  sloped  westward  behind  a  group  of  palms, 
and  the  spell  was  upon  us.  We  had  drifted  into  the  dream 
world.  From  the  ghostly  highlands  and  the  low  shore, 
came  the  baying  of  dogs,  mellowed  by  distance  and  the 
moonlight  into  the  weird  measures  of  a  black  forest  hunt 
ing.  Drifted  away  from  the  world,  yet,  like  Ferdinand, 
moved  by  voiceless  music  in  the  moonlight. 

"  Coine  unto  these  yellow  sands, 
And  then  take  hands — 
Curtsied  when  you  have,  and  list, 
(The  wild  waves  whist,) 
Foot  it  featly  here  and  there, 
•    And  sweet  sprites  the  burden  bear. 
'  Hark,  hark ! 
The  watch-dog's  bark." 

Such  aerial  witchery  was  in  the  night,  for  our  Shakspeare 
was  a  Nile  necromancer  as  well.  Drifted  beyond  the 
world,  yet  not  beyond  the  Poet.  Flutes,  too,  were  blown 
upon  the  shore,  and  horns  and  the  chorus  of  a  crew  camo 
sadly  across  the  water  with  the  faint  throb  of  the  tara- 
buka.  Under  those  warm  southern  stars,  was  a  sense  of 
solitude  and  isolation.  Might  we  not  even  behold  the 


58  NILE   NOTES. 


southern  cross,  when  the  clouds  of  Latakia  rolled  away  ? 
Oar  own  crew  were  silent,  but  a  belated  boat  struggling 
for  a  berth  among  our  fleet,  disturbed  the  slumbers  of  a 
neighboring  crew.  One  sharp,  fierce  cackle  of  dispute  sud 
denly  shattered  the  silence  like  a  tropical  whirlwind,  nor 
was  it  stiller  by  the  blows  mutually  bestowed.  Our  chat 
of  Bagdad  and  the  desert  was  for  a  moment  suspended. 
Nor  did  we  wonder  at  the  struggle,  since  Mars  shone  so 
redly  over.  But  it  died  away  as  suddenly,  and  inexplica 
bly  mournful  as  the  sphinx's  smile,  streamed  the  setting 
moonlight  over  the  world.  Not  a  ripple  of  Western  feeling 
reached  that  repose.  "We  were  in  the  dream  of  the  death 
of  the  deadest  land. 


VII. 


THE  Nile  landscape  is  not  monotonous,  although  of  one 
general  character.  In  that  soft  air  the  lines  change  con 
stantly,  but  imperceptibly,  and  are  always  so  delicately 
lined  and  drawn,  that  the  eye  swims  satisfied  along  the 
warm  tranquillity  of  the  scenery. 

Egypt  is  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  At  its  widest  part  it 
is,  perhaps,  six  or  seven  miles  broad,  and  is  walled  upon 
the  west  by  the  Libyan  mountains,  and  upon  the  east  by 
the  Arabian.  The  scenery  is  simple  and  grand.  The 
forms  of  the  landscape  harmonize  with  the'  forms  of  the 
impression  of  Egypt  in  the  mind.  Solemn  and  still  and 
inexplicable  sits  that  antique  mystery  among  the  flowery 
fancies  and  broad  green  fertile  feelings  of  your  mind  and 
contemporary  life,  as  the  sphinx  sits  upon  the  edge  of  the 
grain-green  plain.  No  scenery  is  grander  in  its  impres 
sion,  for  none  is  so  symbolical.  The  land  seems  to  have 
died  with  the  race  that  made  it  famous — it  is  so  solemnly 
still.  Day  after  day  unrolls  to  the  eye  the  perpetual  pan 
orama  of  fields  wide-waving  with  the  tobacco,  and  glitter 
ing  with  the  golden-blossomed  cotton,  among  which  half- 


00  NILE    NOTES. 


naked  men  and  women  are  lazily  working.  Palm-groves 
stand,  each  palm  a  poem,  brimming  your  memory  with 
beauty.  You  know  from  Sir  Gardiner  Wilkinson,  whose 
volumes  are  here  your  best  tutor,  that  you  are  passing  the 
remains  of  ancient  cities,  as  the  Ibis  loiters  languidly  be 
fore  the  rising  and  falling  north  wind,  or  is  wearily  drawn 
along  by  the  crew  filing  along  the  shore.  An  occasional 
irregular  reach  of  mounds  and  a  bit  of  crumbling  wall 
distract  imagination  as  much  with  the  future  as  the  past, 
straining  to  realize  the  time  when  New  York  shall  be  an 
irregular  reach  of  mounds,  or  a  bit  of  crumbling  wall. 

Impossible  ?  Possibly.  But  are  we  so  loved  of  time, 
we  petted  youngest  child,  that  the  fate  of  his  eldest  gor 
geous  Asia,  and  Africa,  its  swart  mysterious  twin  shall 
only  frown  at  us  through  them  and  fly  ? 

The  austere  Arabian  mountains  leave  Cairo  with  us, 
and  stretch  in  sad  monotony  of  strength  along  the  Eastern 
shore.  There  they  shine  sandily,  the  mighty  advanced 
guard  of  the  desert.  "  Here,"  say  they,  and  plant  their 
stern  feet  forever,  and  over  their  shoulders  sweep  and  sing 
the  low  wild  winds  from  mid  Arabia,  "  sand-grains  out 
numbering  all  thy  dear  drops  of  water  are  behind  us,  to 
maintain  our  might  and  subdue  thee,  fond,  fair  river  !" 

But  it  glides  unheeded  at  their  base,  lithely  swing 
ing  its  long  unbroken  phalanx  of  sweet  water — waving 
gently  against  the  immovable  cliffs  like  palm  branches 
of  peace  against  a  foe's  serried  front. 

Presently  the  Libyan  heights  appear,  and  the  river  is 
invested.  A  sense  of  fate  then  spells  you,  and  you  feel 


THE    LANDSCAPE. 


that  the  two  powers  must  measure  their  might  at  last, 
and  go  forward  to  the  cataract  with  the  feeling  of  one  who 
shall  behold  terrible  battles. 

Yet  the  day,  mindful  only  of  beauty,  lavishes  all  its 
light  upon  the  mighty  foes,  adorning  them  each  impar 
tially  for  its  own  delight.  Along  the  uniform  Arabian 
highland,  it  swims  and  flashes,  and  fades  in  exquisite 
hues,  magically  making  it  the  sapphire  wall  of  that  garden 
of  imagination,  which  fertile  Arabia  is  ;  or  in  the  full  gush 
of  noon  standing  it  along  the  eastern  horizon  as  an  image 
of  those  boundless  deserts,  which  no  man  can  conceive, 
more  than  the  sea,  until  he  beholds  them. 

But  the  advancing  desert  consumes  cities  of  the  river, 
so  that  fair  fames  of  eldest  history  are  now  mere  names. 
Even  the  perplexed  river  sweeps  away  its  own,  but  reveals 
richer  reaches  of  green  land  for  the  old  lost,  and  Arabia 
and  Lybia  are  foiled  forever.  Forever,  for  it  must  be  as  it 
has  been,  until  the  fertility  of  the  tropics  that  floats  sea 
ward  in  the  Nile,  making  the  land  of  Egypt  as  it  goes,  is 
exhausted  in  its  source. 

But  there  is  a  profounder  charm  in  the  landscape,  a 
beauty  that  grows  more  slowly  into  the  mind,  but  is  as  per 
fect  and  permanent.  Gradually  the  Howadji  perceives  the 
harmony  of  the  epical,  primitive,  and  grand  character  of  the 
landscape,  and  the  austere  simplicity  of  the  Egyptian  art. 
Fresh  from  the  galleries  of  Europe,  it  is  not  without  awe 
that  he  glides  far  behind  our  known  beginnings  of  civiliza 
tion,  and  standing  among  its  primeval  forms,  realizes  the 
relation  of  nature  and  art. 


62  NILE   NOTES. 

There  is  no  record  of  any  thing  like  lyrical  poetry  in  the 
history  of  the  elder  Egyptians.  Their  theology  was  the 
somber  substance  of  their  life.  This  fact  of  history  .the 
Howadji  sees  before  he  reads. 

Nature  is  only  epical  here.  She  has  no  little  lyrics  of 
green  groves,  and  blooming  woods,  and  sequestered  lanes — 
no  lonely  pastoral  landscape.  But  from  every  point  the 
Egyptian  could  behold  the  desert  heights,  and  the  river, 
and  the  sky.  This  grand  and  solemn  Nature  has  imposed 
upon  the  art  of  the  land,  the  law  of  its  own  being  and 
beauty.  Out  of  the  landscape,  too,  springs  the  mystery 
of  Egyptian  character,  and  the  character  of  its  art.  For 
silence  is  the  spirit  of  these  sand  mountains,  and  of  this 
sublime  sweep  of  luminous  sky- — and  silence  is  the  mother 
of  mystery.  Primitive  man  so  surrounded,  can  then  do 
nothing  but  what  is  simple  and  grand.  The  pyramids 
reproduce  the  impression  and  the  form  of  the  landscape 
in  which  they  stand.  The  pyramids  say,  in  the  Nature 
around  them,  "  Man,  his  mark." 

Later,  he  will  be  changed  by  a  thousand  influences, 
but  can  never  escape  the  mystery  that  haunts  his  home, 
and  will  carve  the  Sphinx  and  the  strange  mystical  Mem- 
non.  The  Sphinx  says  to  the  Howadji  what  Egypt  said 
to  the  Egyptian — and  from  the  fascination  of  her  face 
streams  all  the  yearning,  profound  and  pathetic  power  that 
is  the  soul  of  the  Egyptian  day. 

So  also  from  the  moment  the  Arabian  highlands  ap 
peared,  we  had  in  their  lines  and  in  the  ever  graceful  and 
suggestive  palms,  the  grand  elements  of  Egyptian  archi- 


THE    LANDSCAPE.  63 

tecture.  Often  in  a  luminously  blue  day  as  the  Howadji 
sits  reading  or  musing  before  the  cabin,  the  stratified  sand 
mountain  side,  with  a  stately  arcade  of  palms  on  the 
smooth  green  below,  floats  upon  his  eye  through  the  serene 
sky  as  the  ideal  of  that  mighty  Temple  which  Egyptian 
architecture  struggles  to  realize — and  he  feels  that  he  be 
holds  the  seed  that  flowered  at  last  in  the  Parthenon  arid 
all  Greek  architecture. 

The  beginnings  seem  to  have  been,  the  sculpture  of 
the  hills  into  their  own  forms,— vast  regular  chambers  cut 
in  the  rock  or  earth,  vaulted  like  the  sky  that  hung  over 
the  hills,  and  like  that,  starred  with  gold  in  a  blue  space. 

From  these  came  the  erection  of  separate  buildings — 
but  always  of  the  same  grand  and  solemn  character.  In 
them  the  majesty  of  the  mountain  is  repeated.  Man  cons 
the  lesson  which  Nature  has  taught  him. 

Exquisite  details  follow.  The  fine  flower-like  forms 
and  foliage  that  have  arrested  the  quick  sensitive  eye  of 
artistic  genius,  appear  presently  as  ornaments  of  his  work. 
Man  as  the  master,  and  the  symbol  of  power,  stands  calm 
with  folded  hands  in  the  Osiride  columns.  Twisted  water 
reeds  and  palms,  whose  flowing  crests  are  natural  capitals, 
are  added.  Then  the  lotus  and  acanthus  are  wreathed 
around  the  columns,  and  so  the  most  delicate  detail  of  the 
Egyptian  landscape  re-appeared  in  its  art. 

But  Egyptian  art  never  loses  this  character  of  solemn 
sublimity.  It  is  not  simply  infancy,  it  was  the  law  of  its 
life.  The  art  of  Egypt  never  offered  to  emancipate  itself 
from  this  character,-— it  changed  only  when  strangers 
came. 


64  NILE    NOTES. 


Greece  fulfilled  Egypt.  To  the  austere  grandeur  of 
simple  natural  forms,  Greek  art  succeeded  as  the  flower 
to  foliage.  The  essential  strength  is  retained,  but  an 
aerial  grace  and  elegance,  an  exquisite  elaboration  fol 
lowed  ;  as  Eve  followed  Adam.  For  Grecian  temples 
have  a  fine  feminineness  of  character  when  measured  with 
the  Egyptian.  That  hushed  harmony  of  grace — even  the 
snow-sparkling  marble,  and  the  general  impression,  have 
this  difference. 

Such  hints  are  simple  and  obvious — and  there  is  no 
fairer  or  more  frequent  flower  upon  these  charmed  shores, 
than  the  revelations  they  make  of  the  simple  naturalness 
of  primitive  art. 


VIII. 

$  r  n  r  It  i  it  g , 

OUR  angels  of  annunciation,  this  Christmas  eve,  were 
the  crews  of  the  boats  at  Benisoeth,  the  first  important 
town  upon  the  river.  They  blew  pipes,  not  unlike  those 
of  the  Pifferari  in  Rome,  who  come  from  the  Abruzzi  at 
the  annunciation,  and  play  before  the  Madonna  shrines 
until  her  son  is  born.  The  evening  was  not  too  cool  for 
us  to  smoke  our  chibouques  on  the  upper  deck.  There  in 
the  gray  moonlight  too,  Aboo  Seyd  was  turned  to  Mecca, 
and  genuflexing  and  ground-kissing  to  a  degree  that  proved 
his  hopeless  sinfulness. 

Courteous  reader,  that  Christmas  eve,  for  the  first  time 
the  Howadji  went  to  bed  in  Levinge's  bag.  It  is  a  net, 
warranted  to  keep  mosquitoes  out,  and  the  occupant  in, 
and  much  recommended  by  those  who  have  been  persuaded 
to  buy,  and  those  who  have  them  to  sell.  I  struggled  into 
mine,  and  was  comfortable.  But  the  Pacha  of  two  shirt 
tails  was  in  a  trying  situation.  For  this  perplexing  prob 
lem  presented  itself — the  candle  being  extinguished  to  get 
in,  or  being  in,  to  blow  out  the  candle.  "  l  Peace  on  earth' 
there  may  be,"  said  the  Pacha,  holding  with  one  hand  the 


NILE    NOTES. 


candlestick,  and  with  the  other  the  chimney  of  the  bag, 
"  but  there  is  none  upon  the  water,'7  and  he  stood  irresolute, 
until,  placing  the  candlestick  upon  the  floor,  and  strug 
gling  into  the  bag,  as  into  an  unwilling  shirt,  the  hand  was 
protruded — seized  the  candlestick,  and  Grenius  had  cut  the 
Grordian  knot  of  Doubt. 

A  calm  Christmas  dawned.  It  was  a  day  to  dream 
of  the  rose-radiance  that  trembles  over  the  Mountains  of 
the  Moon  :  a  day  to  read  Werne's  "White  Nile  Journal,  with 
its  hourly  record  of  tropical  life  among  the  simple  races  of 
the  Equator,  and  enchanting  stories  of  acres  of  lotus  bloom 
in  Ethiopia.  It  was  not  difficult  to  fancy  that  we  were 
following  him,  as  we  slid  away  from  the  shore  and  saw 
the  half-naked  people,  the  mud  huts,  and  every  sign  of  a 
race  forever  young. 

We  sprang  ashore  for  a  ramble,  and  the  Pacha  took  his 
gun  for  a  little  bird-murder.  Climbing  the  bank  from  the 
water  We  emerged  upon  the  level  plain  covered  with  an 
endless  mesh  of  flowering  lupin.  The  palm-grove  beck 
oned  friendlily  with  its  pleasant  branches,  through  which 
the  breath  of  the  warm  morning  was  whispering  sweet 
secrets.  I  heard  them.  Fine  Ear  had  not  delicater  senses 
than  the  Howadji  may  have  in  Egypt.  I  knew  that  the 
calm  Christmas  morning  was  toying  with  the  subtle- 
winged  Summer,  under  those  palms — the  Summer  that 
had  fled  before  me  from  Switzerland  over  the  Italian  vin 
tage.  Over  my  head  was  the  dreamy  murmurousness  of 
summer  insects  swarming  in  the  warm  air.  The  grain 
was  green,  and  the  weeds  were  flowering  at  my  feet.  The 


TRACKING.  67 


repose  of  August  weather  brooded  in  the  radiant  sky. 
Whoso  would  follow  the  Summer  will  find  her  lingering 
and  loitering  under  the  palm-groves  of  the  Nile,  when  she 
is  only  a  remembrance  and  a  hope  upon  the  vineyards  of 
the  Rhine,  and  the  gardens  of  the  Hudson. 

Aboo  Seyd  followed  us,  and  we  suddenly  encountered 
a  brace  of  unknown  Howadji.  They  proved  to  be  French 
men,  and  had  each  a  gun.  Why  is  a  Frenchman  so  un- 
sphered,  out  of  Paris  ?  They  inquired  for  their  boat  with 
a  tricolor,  which  we  had  not  seen,  and  told  us  that  there 
were  wild  boars  in  the  palm-groves.  Then  they  stalked 
away  among  the  coarse,  high,  hilfeh  grass,  with  both  gun- 
barrels  cocked.  Presently  the  charge  of  one  of  them  came 
rustling  around  our  legs,  through  the  grass.  We  hailed, 
and  informed  the  hunters  that  we  were  pervious  to  shot. 
They  protested  and  demanded  many  thousand  pardons, 
then  discovered  their  boat  and  embarked  to  breakfast,  to 
recount  over  their  Bordeaux  the  morning  hunt  of  san- 
gliers  and  Anglais,  for  one  of  which,  they  probably  mis 
took  us. 

We  returned  too,  and  eat  pomegranates,  but  went  ashore 
again,  for  this  was  a  tracking  day — a  day  when  there  is 
no  wind,  but  the  boat  is  drawn  a  few  miles  by  the  crew. 
There  was  a  village  near  us  under  the  palms,  and  the  vil 
lage  smoke,  aerialized  into  delicate  blue  haze,  made  with 
the  sunset  a  glowing  atmosphere  of  gold  and  blue,  in 
which  a  distant  palm-grove  stood  like  a  dream  of  Faery. 
Querulous  dogs  were  barking  in  the  vicinity  of  the  mud 
city,  for  it  deserved  that  name,  a  chaos  of  mud  huts  and 


68  NILE    NOTES. 


inclosures,  built  apparently  at  random,  and  full  of  an  in 
credible  squalor,  too  animal  to  be  sad.  -The  agile  Grauls 
were  plunging  across  the  plain,  scrambling  up  little  hil 
locks  with  their  cocked  muskets,  causing  us  rueful  reflec 
tions  upon  the  frailty  of  human  legs.  Pop-pop,  went  the 
desperadoes  of  hunters  at  the  tame  pigeons  on  the  palms. 
"We  wended  through  the  fields  of  sprouting  beans.  A  few 
women  and  children  lingered  still,  others  were  driving 
donkeys  and  buffaloes  homeward — for  these  hard  clay 
hovels  were  homes  too. 

I  foresee  that  the  Egyptian  sunsets  will  shine  much, 
too  much,  along  these  pages.  But  they  are  so  beautiful, 
and  every  sunset  is  so  new,  that  the  Howadji  must  claim 
the  law  of  lovers,  and  perpetually  praise  the  old  beauty  for 
ever  young. 

This  evening  the  sun  swept  suddenly  into  the  west, 
drawing  the  mists  in  a  whirlpool  after  him.  The  vortex 
of  luminous  vapor  gradually  diffused  itself  over  the  whole 
sky,  and  the  Ibis  floated  in  a  mist  of  gold,  its  slim  yards 
and  masts  sculptured  like  Claude's  vessels  in  his  sunsets. 
It  paled  then,  gradually,  and  a  golden  gloom  began  the 
night. 

We  emerged  from  the  palms,  on  whose  bending  boughs 
doves  sat  and  swung,  and  saw  the  gloom  gradually  gray 
ing  over  the  genial  Nile  valley.  As  we  neared  the  Ibis  we 
met  our  third  Mohammad,  a  smooth  Nubian  of  the  crew, 
and  Seyd,  the  one-eyed  first  officer,  whom  the  Commander 
had  sent  to  search  for  us.  They  carried  staves  like 
beadles  or  like  Roman  consuls,  for  they  were  to  see  that  we 


TRACKING.  69 


"took  no  detriment" — "for  the  dogs  and  the  impudent 
people,"  said  Golden-sleeve,  with  bodeful  head-shakings. 

Thou  timorous  Commander !  Hath  not  the  Pacha  a 
one-barreled  gun  and  tales  innumerable  ?  He  said  that 
Nero  had  passed  the  mud  city  only  the  night  before. 
But  did  the  moonlight  show  him  what  we.  saw— --two  Ibis 
perched,  snowy  white,  upon  the  back  of  a  buffalo  ? 

Then,  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives,  the  Howadji  sat 
quietly  smoking  in  the  open  air  upon  Christmas  evening : 
but  hunted  no  slipper,  nor  was  misletoe  hung  in  the  cabin, 


IX. 


THE  wind  rose  cheerly,  the  tricolor  fluttered  and  dropped 
behind,  and  leaving  all  rivals,  the  eager  Ibis  ran  wing  and 
wing  before  the  breeze. 

The  bold  mountains  did  not  cease  to  bully.  Sometimes 
they  receded  a  little,  leaving  spaces  of  level  sand,  as  if  the 
impatient  desert  behind  had  in  some  spots  pressed  over  and 
beyond  them  ;  but  they  drew  out  again  quite  to  the  stream, 
and  rose  sheerly  in  steep,  caverned  cliffs  from  the  water, 
housing  wild  fowl  innumerable,  that  shrieked  and  cried 
like  birds  of  prey  before  the  mighty  legions. 

Over  these  mountain  shoulders,  the  winds  not  only 
sing,  but  bloated  into  storms  and  sudden  tempests,  they 
spring  upon  the  leaning  lateen  sails  that  fly  with  eagerly 
pointing  yards  beneath,  as  if  to  revenge  themselves  upon 
the  river,  in  the  destruction  of  what  it  bears.  Under  the 
Aboofeyda  and  the  Gfebel  Shekh  Hereedee,  and  the  Gre 
be!  Tookh,  and  wherever  else  the  mountain's  pile  their 
frowning  fronts  in  precipices  along  the  shore,  are  the  dan 
gers  of  Nile  navigation. 

A  tranquil  twilight  breath  wafted  us  beneath  the  first, 


FLYING.  71 


and  another  sunset  breeze  ran  us  dashingly  toward  the 
Shekh  Hereedee.  But  just  when  the  evening  was  dark 
est,  a  sudden  gust  sprang,  upon  us  from  the  mountain. 
It  shook  the  fleet  bold  Ibis  into  trembling,  but  she  suc 
ceeded  in  furling  her  larger  wing,  and  struggling  through 
she  fled  fast  and  forward  in  the  dark,  until  under  Orion 
in  the  zenith,  and  his  silent  society,  she  drew  calmly  to  the 
shore,  and  dreamed  all  night  of  the  serpent  of  Shekh  Heree 
dee,  who  cured  all  woes  but  those  of  his  own  making. 

Neither  was  the  (rebel  Tookh  our  friend.  The  moun 
tainous  regions  are  always  gusty,  and  the  Ibis  had  been 
squall-struck  several  times,  but  ran  at  last  free  and  fair 
before  the  wind,  between  shores  serene,  on  which  we  could 
hear  the  call  of  women  to  each  other,  and  not  seeing  their 
faces,  could  fancy  their  beauty  at  will,  and  their  worthi 
ness  to  be  nymphs  of  the  Nile. 

We  were  still  slipping  swiftly  along  under  the  foresail, 
and  the  minarets  of  Grirgeh  glittered  on  the  southern 
horizon. 

"Why  not  the  mainsail,"  cried  the  Pacha,  "in  this 
lulling  wind?" 

The  Ibis  shook  out  her  great  wing,  and  stood  across, 
bending  with  the  river,  straight  toward  the  (rebel  Tookh. 
She  plowed  the  water  into  flashing  foam-furrows  as  we 
swept  on.  The  very  landscape  was  sparkling  and  spirited 
for  that  exciting  speed.  The  half  human  figures  upon  the 
shore  paused  to  watch  us  as  we  passed.  But  in  the  dark 
gulf  under  the  mountain,  where,  on  the  steep  strip  of 
shore,  the  Nile  had  flung  down  to  its  foe  a  gauntlet  of 


NILE    NOTES. 


green,  the  gale  that  lives  in  Arab  tradition  along  those 
heights,  like  an  awful  Afreet,  plunged  suddenly  upon  us, 
and  for  a  few  moments  the  proud  Ibis  strained  and  quiv 
ered  in  its  grasp. 

The  dark  waves  dashed  foam-tipped  against  her  side, 
and  seethed  with  the  swell  of  a  small  sea,  as  the  Ibis 
spurned  them  and  flew  on.  Behind,  one  solitary  Cangie 
was  struggling  with  a  loosely  flapping  sail,  through  a  nar 
row  channel,  and  before  us  was  the  point,  round  which, 
once  made,  we  should  fly  before  the  wind.  It  was  clear 
that  we  had  too  much  canvas  for  the  pass.  The  crew 
squatted  imbecile,  wrapped  in  their  blankets,  and  stared 
in  stupid  amazement  at  the  cliff  and  the  river.  The  an 
cient  mariner,  half  crouching  over  the  tiller,  and  show 
ing  his  two  surviving  teeth  to  the  gale,  fastened  his  eye 
upon  the  boat  and  the  river,  while  the  wild  wind  danced 
about  his  drapery,  fluttering  all  his  rags,  and  howling  with 
delight  as  it  forced  him  to  strain  at  his  tiller,  or  with  rage 
as  it  feared  his  mastery. 

I  did  not  observe  that  the  Muslim  were  any  more 
fatalists  than  the  merest  Christians.  Mere  Christians  would 
have  helped  themselves  a  little,  doubtless,  and  so  would 
the  Muslim,  if  they  had  known  how  to  do  it.  Their  res 
ignation  was  not  religion,  but  stupidity.  The  golden- 
sleeved  Commander  was  evidently  averse  to  a  sloping  deck, 
at  least  to  slopes  of  so  aggravated  an  angle  ;  and  the  crew 
were  clearly  wondering  how  infidels  could  rate  their  lives 
so  justly  as  the  Howadji  did,  in  suggesting  the  mainsail 
at  the  very  feet  of  the  inexorable  (rebel  Tookh. 


FLYING.  73 


Twice  the  squall  struck  the  Ibis,  and  twice  pausing 
and  shivering  a  moment,  she  stretched  her  wings  again, 
and  fled  foamingly  mad  before  it.  Then  she  rounded  the 
point,  and  passing  a  country  boat  fully  laden  with  men 
and  produce,  lying  to  under  a  bank,  drove  on  to  Grirgeh. 
The  baffled  gale  retreated  to  its  mountain  cavern  to  lie  in 
awful  ambush  for  Nero,  and  the  blue  pennant,  whom  we 
had  passed  already — yes,  0  Osiris  !  possibly  to  hunt  the 
hunting  Messieurs,  nor  to  let  them  off  for  their  legs  alone. 
Then  the  Ibis  furled  neatly  and  handsomely  her  wild 
wings  before  the  minarets  of  Grirgeh. 

0 


X. 

Unit*  (Shunt  Mi  /*lUttt 


As  we  drift  along,  and  the  day  paints  its  placid  picture 
upon  the  eye,  each  sail  shining  in  the  distance,  and  fading 
beyond   the   palm-groved  points,  recalls  our  fellow-mari 
ners.     You  may  embark  on  the  same  day  that  others  em 
bark  from  Boulak,  and  be  two  months  upon  the  Nile,  yet 
never  meet  or  only  so  rarely,  as  to  make  parting,  sorrow. 
Yet   as  the  charm  of  new  impressions  and  thoughts  is 
doubled  by  reflection  in  a  friend's  mind,  you  scan  very 
curiously  upon  your  arrival  in  Cairo,  the  groups  who  are 
to  form  the  society  of  the  River.     Usually,  however,  you 
will  come  with  one  friend,  nor  care  much  for  many  others. 
Once  in  Egypt,  you  are  so  far  removed  from  things  familiar, 
that  you  wish  to  unsphere   yourself  entirely,  to  lose   all 
trace  of  your  own  nationality,  and  to  separate  yourself 
from  the  past.     In  those  dim,  beautiful  bazaars  of  Cairo, 
where  all  the  wares  of  the  most  inventive  imagination 
should  be,  you  dream  vaguely  that  some  austere  astrol 
oger  sitting  cross-legged  before  his  odorous  crucibles,  and 
breathing  contemplative   smoke,  must   needs  be  Icarian 
progeny,  and  can  whisper  the  secret  of  those  wings  of  the 


VERDE    GIOVANE. 


morning  which  shall  bear  you  to  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  earth. 

All  things  seem  possible  when  you  actually  see  the 
pyramids  and  palms.  Persia  is  then  very  probable,  —  and 
you  are  willing  to  propose  the  Granges  as  your  next  river 
voyage.  Yet  the  first  Cairo  eve,  as  the  Howadji  sat  in 
Shepherd's  dining-room,  that  long  large  hall  opening  upon 
the  balcony,  of  whose  stability  some  are  suspicious,  which 
overhangs  the  Uzbeekeeyah,  —  -massively  foliaged  with  De 
cember-blooming  acacias,  —  there  as  they  sat  tranquilly 
smoking  chibouques,  detecting  an  unwonted  tendency  in 
the  legs  to  curl,  and  cross  themselves  upon  the  cushions, 
and  inwardly  congratulating  themselves  that  at  length 
they  were  oriental,  a  brisk  little  English  officer  suddenly 
spoke,  and  said  —  "  When  I  was  in  the  East."  Heavens  ! 
the  Howadji  legs  uncurled  immediately,  and  the  words 
shoved  them  deep  into  the  "West  —  "  when  I  was  in  the 
East!" 

"  And  where  were  you  then,  Major  Pendennis?" 

For  it  was  plain  to  see  that  it  was  Major  Pendennis-— 
wearied  of  Pall  Mall  —  and  recruiting  from  the  fatigues  of 
Indian  service  in  a  little  Western  recreation  in  Syria  and 
Egypt. 

"  Ah  !  my  dear  sir,  it  was  when  I  was  in  Persia,"— 
and  the  worthy  Major  waxed  warm  in  his  tales  of  Persian 
life,  especially  of  that  horsemanship  whereof  Apollo  seems  \ 
to  have  been  the  Grod  —  so  graceful,  so  poetic,  so  perfect  is 
its  character.  But  no  listener,  listened  so  lovingly  and 
long,  as  Yerde  Giovane.  I  thought  him  a  very  young 


V6  NILE   NOTES. 


grandson  of  my  elderly  friend  Bull.  Verde  was  joyous 
and  gay.  He  had  already  been  to  the  pyramids,  and 
had  slept  in  a  tomb,  and  had  his  pockets  picked  as  he 
wandered  through  their  disagreeable  darkness.  He  had 
come  freshly  and  fast  from  England,  to  see  the  world, 
omitting  Paris  and  Western  Europe  on  his  way, — as  he  * 
embarked  at  Southampton  for  Alexandria.  Being  in  Cairo, 
he  felt  himself  abroad.  Sternhold  and  Hopkins  were  his 
Laureates,  for  perpetually  on  all  kinds  of  wings  of  mighty 
winds  he  came  flying  all  abroad.  He  lost  a  great  deal  of 
money  at  billiards  to  "  jolly"  fellows  whom  he  afterward 
regaled  with  cold  punch  and  choice  cigars.  He  wrangled 
wildly  with  a  dragoman  of  very  imperfect  English  powers, 
and  packed  his  tea  for  the  voyage  in  brown  paper  parcels. 
He  was  perpetually  on  the  point  of  leaving.  At  breakfast, 
he  would  take  a  loud  leave  of  the  "jolly"  fellows,  and  if 
there  were  ladies  in  the  room,  he  slung  his  gun  in  a  very 
abandoned  manner  over  his  shoulder,  and  while  he  adjusted 
his  shot-pouch  with  careless  heroism,  as  if  the  enemy  were 
in  ambush  on  the  stairs, — as  who  should  say,  •"  I'll  do  their 
business  easily  enough,"  he  would  remark  with  a  mean 
ing  smile,  that  he  should  stop  a  day  or  two  at  Esne, 
probably,  and  then  go  off  humming  a  song  from  the 
Favorita, — or  an  air  whose  words  were  well  known  to  the 
jolly  fellows,  but  would  scarcely  bear  female  criticism. 

After  this  departure,  he  had  a  pleasant  way  of  reappear 
ing  at  the  dinner-table,  for  the  pale  ale  was  not  yet  aboard, 
or  the  cook  was  ill,  or  there  had  been  another  explosion 
with  the  dragoman.  Verde  Giovane  found  the  Cairene  v 


VERD'E   GIOVANE.  77 

evenings  "slow."  It  was  astonishing  how  much  execu 
tion  he  accomplished  with  those  words  of  very  moderate 
caliber,  "  slow,"  "jolly,"  and  "stunning."  The  universe 
arranged  itself  in  Verde  Giovane's  mind,  under  those  three 
heads.  Presently  it  was  easy  to  predicate  his  criticisms 
in  any  department.  He  had  lofty  views  of  travel.  Verde 
Griovane  had  come  forth  to  see  the  world,  and  vainly 
might  the  world  seek  to  be  unseen.  He  wished  to  push 
on  to  Sennaar  and  Ethiopia.  It  was  very  slow  to  go  only 
to  the  cataracts.  Ordinary  travel,  and  places  already  be 
held  of  men,  were  not  for  Verde.  But  if  there  were  any 
Chinese  wall  to  be  scaled,  or  the  English  standard  were  to 
be  planted  upon  any  vague  and  awful  Himalayan  height, 
or  a  new  oasis  were  to  be  revealed  in  the  desert  of  Sahara, 
here  was  the  heaven- appointed  Verde  Griovane,  only  await 
ing  his  pale  ale,  and  determined  to  dally  a  little  at  Esne. 
After  subduing  the  East  by  travel,  he  proposed  to  enter 
the  Caucasian  Mountains,  and  serve  as  a  Russian  officer. 
These  things  were  pleasant  to  hear,  as  to  behold  at  Christ 
mas  those  terrible  beheadings  of  giants  by  Tom  Thumb, 
for  you  enjoyed  a  sweet  sense  of  security  and  a  conscious 
ness  that  no  harm  was  done.  They  were  wild  Arabian 
romances,  attributable  to  the  inspiration  of  the  climate,  in 
the  city  he  found  so  slow.  The  Cairenes  were  listening 
elsewhere  to  their  poets,  Verde  G-iovane  was  ours<;  and  we 
knew  very  well  that  he  would  go  quietly  up  to  the  first 
cataract,  and  then  returning  to  Alexandria,  would  steam 
to  Jaffa,  and  thence  donkey  placidly  to  Jerusalem,  moan 
ing  in  his  sleep  of  Cheapside  and  St.  Paul's. 


78  NILE   NOTES. 


His  chum,  Gunning,  was  a  brisk  little  barrister,  dried 
up  in  the  Temple  like  a  small  tart  sapson.  In  the  course 
of  acquaintance  with  him,  you  stumbled  surprised  upon 
the  remains  of  geniality  and  gentle  culture,  as  you  would 
upon  Greek  relics  in  Greenland.  He  was  a  victim  of 
the  Circe,  Law,  but  not  entirely  unhumanized.  Like  the 
young  king,  he  was  half  marble,  but  not  all  stony. 
Gunning's  laugh  was  very  ludicrous.  It  had  no  fun  in  it 
— no  more  sweetness  than  a  crow's  caw,  and  it  sprang 
upon  you  suddenly  and  startling,  like  the  breaking  down 
of  a  cart  overloaded  with  stones.  He  was  very  ugly  and 
moody,  and  walked  apart  muttering  to  himself,  and  ner 
vously  grinning  ghastly  grins,  so  that  Gunning  was  sus 
pected  of  insanity — a  suspicion  that  became  certainty 
when  he  fringed  his  mouth  with  stiff  black  bristles,  and 
went  up  the  Nile  with  Yerde  Giovane. 

For  the  little  Yerde  did  say  a  final  farewell  at  last, 
and  left  the  dining-room  gayly  and  gallantly,  as  a  stage 
bandit  disappears  down  pasteboard  rocks  to  desperate  en- 
tounters  with  mugs  of  beer  in  the  green-room. 


XL 

- 


I  KNEW  at  Cairo,  too,  another  youth,  whom  I  was  sure 
was  a  Yerde.  I  thought  him  brother  of  the  good  Yerde 
Griovane,  but  he  denied  all  relationship,  although  I  am 
convinced  he  was  at  least  first  cousin.  Possibly,  you 
know  not  the  modesty  of  the  Indian  Englishman. 

It  was  in  the  same  dining-room,  and  the  youth  was 
expatiating  to  Major  Pendennis  upon  his  braving  the  des 
ert  dangers  from  Suez,  of  his  exploits  of  heroism,  and  en 
durance  upon  the  Nile  voyage,  which  he  had  already  made, 
and  was  again  projecting,  and  generally  of  things  innu 
merable,  and  to  lesser  men  insuperable,  undergone  or  over 
borne. 

"  And  up  the  Nile,  too,"  said  he,  "I  carried  no~  bed, 
and  slept  upon  the  bench ;  over  the  desert  I  go  with  one 
camel,  and  she  carries  every  thing.  Why  will  men  travel 
with  such  retinues,  caring  for  their  abominable  comfort ;" 
and  the  young  gentleman  ordered  his  nargileh. 

""  But,  my  dear  sir,"  said  Major  Pendennis,  "why 
rough  it  here  upon  the  Nile  ?  It  is  harder  to  do  that  than 
to  go  comfortably.  You  might  as  well  rough  it  through 
England.  The  bottle,  if  you  please." 


80  NILE    NOTES. 


"  Why,  Major,"  returned  the  youth,  smiling  in  his  turn, 
and  crowding  his  body  into  his  chair,  so  that  the  back  of 
his  head  rested  upon  the  chair-back,  "it  is  well  enough 
for  some  of  you,  but  we  poor  East  India  subalterns! 
Besides,  you  know,  Major,  discipline — not  only  military, 
which  is  in  our  way,  but  moral.  For  what  says  the  Amer 
ican  poet,  who,  I  doubt  not,  lives  ascetically  in  some  re 
tired  cave  : 

k  "  Know  how  sublime  a  thing  it  ia 
To  suffer  and  be  strong." 

So  saying,  the  young  man  clapped  his  hands,  and  a 
Hindoo  boy  in  his  native  costume  appeared.  The  youth 
addressed  some  words  to  him  in  an  unknown  tongue, 
which  produced  no  effect  until  he  pointed  to  his  nargileh, 
and  rising  at  the  same  time,  the  slave  removed  the  nar 
gileh  a  few  steps  toward  his  master,  who  curled  up  his 
feet  and  prepared  to  suffer  and  be  strong  in  the  sofa 
corner. 

By  this  time  G-alignani  and  the  French  news  were  en 
tirely  uninteresting  to  me.  "Who  this  was  ? — this  per 
sonage  who  modestly  styled  himself  we  "poor  East  In 
dia  subalterns,"  and  summoned  Hindoo  servants  to  turn 
round  his  nargileh,  and  hob-nobbed  with  Major  Penden- 
nises,  and  who  suffered  and  was  strong  in  such  pleasant 
ways. 

Major  Pendennis  shoving  his  chair  a  little  back,  said, 
"  "When  I  was  in  the  East,"  and  compared  experience  of 
travel  with  his  young  friend. 


YERDE    PIU    GIOVANE.  81 

The  Major,  truly  a  gallant  gentleman,  related  the  Ro 
man  hardihood  of  those  British  officers  who  advance  into 
the  heart  of  Hindostan  and  penetrate  to  Persia,  reclining 
upon  cushioned  camels,  resting  upon  piles  of  Persian 
carpets  on  elevated  frameworks  under  silken  tents,  sur 
rounded  by  a  shining  society  of  servants  and  retinue,  so 
that,  to  every  effective  officer,  every  roaring  and  rampant 
British  Lion  of  this  caliber,  go  eight  or  ten  attendant 
supernumeraries,  who  wait  upon  his  nargileh,  coffee,  sher 
bet,  and  pale  ale,  and  care  generally  for  his  suffering  and 
strength. 

In  the  dim  dining-room,  I  listened  wondering  to  these 
wild  tales  of  military  hardship  sung  by  a  soldier-poet.  I 
fancied  as  the  periods  swelled,  that  I  heard  the  hoary  his 
torian  reciting  the  sparkling  romance  of  Xerxes'  marches 
and  the  shining  advance  of  Persian  arms. .  But  no  sooner 
had  the  Major  ceased  his  story,  than  "  we  poor  East  India 
subalterns"  "  took  up  the  wondrous  tale." 

The  Howadji  weltered  then  in  a  whirlpool  of  bril 
liant  confusion.  Names  of  fair  fame  bubbled  up  from  the 
level  tone  of  his  speech,  like  sudden  sun-seeking  fountains 
from  bloom-matted  plains.  I  heard  Bagdad,  Damascus, 
Sinai,  and  farther  and  fairer,  the  Arabian  Grulf,  Pearls 
and  Circassians.  I  knew  that  he  was  telling  of  where  he 
had  been,  or  might  have  been,  or  wished  to  have  been. 
The  rich  romance  reeled  on.  The  fragrant  smoke  curled 
in  heavier  clouds.  I  felt  that  my  experience  was  like  a 
babe  unborn,  beside  that  of  this  mighty  man,  who  knew  ' 
several  things,  and  had  brushed  the  bloom  from  life  with 


82  NILE    NOT'ES. 


the  idle  sweep  of  his  wings,  and  now  tossed  us  the  dull 
rind  for  our  admiring. 

The  silence  of  the  room  was  only  more  rapt  by  his 
voice  meshing  about  our  attention  its  folds  of  fascination, 
when  the  good  Verde  Giovane,  who  sat  next  to  me,  and 
who,  I  fear,  was  not  lending  that  length  of  admiring  ears, 
of  which  he  was  certainly  capable,  suddenly  asked  the 
subaltern,  "  Pray,  is  the  tobacco  you  are  smoking — " 

"  Pardon  me,  sir,  this  is  not  tobacco.  I  am  smoking 
coffee  leaves." 

Unhappy  Giovane !  The  subaltern  looked  upon  him 
with  eyes  that  said,  "  Unworthy  fellow-countryman,  do 
you  imagine  that  men  live  a  brace  of  years  in  the  H.  E. 
I.  C.'s  service  and  then  smoke  tobacco— talk  of  Arabia 
and  pearls,  and  yet  smoke  tobacco — of  Circassians  and 
Lahore,  and  still  smoke  tobacco  ?" 

In  the  amazement  of  that  interruption  the  last  whiff 
of  the  smoke  of  coffee  leaves  curled  scornfully  away  over 
Giovane's  diminished  head.  Hands  were  clapped  again, 
servants  appeared  and  replaced  with  a  chibouque  the  Per 
sian  nargileh  of  the  disciplinarian. 

The  mere  American  Howadji  was  fascinated  with  the 
extent  and  variety  of  knowledge  acquired  by  the  "  poor  sub 
alterns."  "  Never,"  mused  he,  in  a  certain  querulous- 
ness  of  spirit,  "never,  until  we  too  have  an  H.  E.  I.  C.,  can 
we  hope  to  rear  such  youths  as  this.  Happy  country,  im 
perial  England,  that  at  home  fosters  young  men  like  my 
excellent  Yerde  Giovane,  and  in  distant  India,  a  race  of 
Yerdes,  piu  Giovane. 


V.ERDE    PIIT    G  10  VANE. 


The  "poor.  subaltern"  gradually  melted,  and  at  length 
even  smiled  benignly  upon  Griovane,  as  he  suddenly  clap 
ped  his  hands  again  and  summoned  the  Hindoo.  "  Mr. 
Verde,  do  you  smoke  paper  ?"  inquired  he. 

"  No  —  why—  yes,  I  should  be  very  happy,"  replied  the 
appalled  Griovane,  who  told  me  later,  that  he  considered 
the  subaltern  a  right  "jolly"  fellow,  with  a  "stunning" 
way  with  him,  in  which  latter  half  of  praise  I  was  entire 
ly  of  Verde7  s  opinion. 

Turning  to  his  servant,  the  youth  said  something  prob 
ably  in  refined  Hindostanee,  which  the  boy,  speaking  only 
a  patois,  of  course  could  not  understand.  But  "  make  a 
cigarette"  in  pure  English,  resembled  his  patois  to  that 
degree  that  he  understood  at  once,  and  rolled  the  cigarette, 
which  the  youth  handed  to  Giovane  with  an  air  of  majes 
tic  forgiveness,  and  then  taking  a  candle,  he  left  the  room, 
wishing  us  good  night,  as  who  should  say,  "My  Lords, 
farewell  ;"  leaving  the  party  still  as  champagne  when  the 
gas  has  bubbled  briskly  away.  ,  , 

And  yet,  with  that  unmistakable  family  likeness,  he 
could  deny  that  he  was  of  the  great  Yerde  family  ! 

The  mental  shock  of  subsiding  into  my  own  thoughts, 
at  once,  after  that  evening  would  have  been  too  much.  I 
therefore  sought  to  let  myself  down  by  delicate  degrees, 
and  thinking  that  I  had  seized  a  volume  of  Hafiz,  I  step 
ped  upon  the  balcony  to  read  by  moonlight  songs^of  love 
and  wine.  But  I  found  that  I  had  a  natural  history  by  an 
unknown  Arabian  author.  My  finger  was  on  this  passage-— 

"  This  is  a  species  of  the  John  Bull  which  now  for  the 


84  NILE    NOTES. 


first  time  falls  under  the  author's  observation.  Great  is 
Allah  and  Mohammad  his  prophet  for  these  new  revela 
tions.  I  am  told,"  he  continues,  "  that  it  is  not  uncom 
mon  in  the  mother  country.  It  is  there  gregarious  in  its 
habits,  and  found  in  flocks  in  the  thickets  of  Regent  and 
Oxford  streets,  in  the  paddock  of  Pall  Mall,  and  usually  in 
any  large  herd  of  Bulls. 

"  Its  horns  are  enormous  and  threatening,  but  very 
flexible  and  harmless.  Its  ears  and  tail  are  of  uncommon 
length,  but  adroitly  concealed,  and  it  comes  to  luxuriant 
perfection  in  the  southern  parts  of  India,  and  in  fact, 
wherever  the  old  herds  obtain  a  footing. 

"  It  is  very  frisky  and  amusing,  and  delights  to  run  at 
the  spectator  with  its  great  horns  branching.  If  he  is 
panic-stricken  and  flies,  the  Bull  pursues  him  roaring  like 
a  mighty  lion,  and  with  such  energy,  that  the  more  in 
genious  naturalists  suppose,  that  for  the  moment,  the  ani 
mal  really  fancies  his  horns  to  be  hard  and  pointed,  and 
serviceable.  If,  however,  the  spectator  turns,  and  boldly 
takes  the  animal  by  the  horns,  they  will  bend  quite 
down — in  fact,  with  a  little  squeezing  will  entirely  disap 
pear,  and  the  meek-faced  Bull  will  roar  you  as  gently  as 
any  sucking  dove." 

Nor  wonder  at  such  figures  in  our  Nile  picture,  for 
here  are  contrasts  more  profound,  lights  lighter  and  shad 
ows  more  shaded,  than  in  our  better  balanced  West.  Be 
lieve  that  you  more  truly  feel  the  picturesqueness  of  that 
turban  and  that  garb  moving  along  the  shore,  because 
Yerde  Gfiovane's  "  wide-awake"  and  checked  shooting- 


VERDE    PIU    QIOYANE.  85 

jacket  are  hard  before  us.  We  overhauled  them  one  after 
noon,  and  while  Yerde  GKovane  stood  in  a  flat  cap  and  his 
hands  in  the  shooting-jacket's  pocket,  and  told  us  that  Nero 
was  just  ahead  and  in  sight  that  morning,  Gunning  sud 
denly  sprang  upon  deck,  blew  off  his  two  barrels,  laughed 
hysterically,  and  glaring  full  at  us,  we  saw — 0  Dolland! 
that  he  had  succumbed  to  blue  spectacles. 


XII. 

$  rtjn  n  t  * 

SHERBET  OP  ROSES  in  a  fountained  kiosk  of  Damascus 
can  alone  be  more  utterly  oriental  to  the  imagination  and 
sense  than  the  first  interior  view  of  many-minareted 
Asyoot. 

Breathe  here,  and  reflect  that  Asyoot  is  a  squalid  mud 
town,  and  perceiving  that,  and  the  other  too,  as  you 
must  needs  do  when  you  are  there,  believe  in  magic  for 
evermore. 

Under  Aboofeyda,  from  the  dragoman  of  a  Dahabieh 
whose  Howadji  were  in  the  small  boat  shooting  ducks  and 
waking  all  the  wild  echoes  of  the  cliffs,  we  had  heard  of 
Nero  just  ahead,  again,  and  had  left  Verde  and  Gunning 
far  behind.  As  the  Ibis  flew  on  with  favoring  gales,  the 
river  became  more  and  more  winding,  and  the  minarets 
of  Asyoot  were  near  across  the  land,  long  before  the  river 
reached  the  port  of  the  town.  Rounding  one  of  the  points 
we  descried  two  boats  ahead,  and  we  could  at  length  distin 
guish  the  Italian  tricolor  of  Nero.  His  companion  bore  an 
immensely  blue  pennant  that  floated  in  great  bellying  folds 
upon  the  wind,  like  a  huge  serpent.  Suddenly  we  came 


ASYOOT.  8Y 


directly  into  the  wind  and  threw  the  men  ashore  to  track 
along  a  fine  bank  of  acacias.  This  passed,  we  saw  the 
blue  pennant  standing  across  into  the  reach  of  the  stream 
that  stretches  straight  to  Asyoot,  and  a  few  moments  after 
Nero  emerged  and  strained  canvas  after,  and  we,  piling 
in  our  men  as  soon  as  possible,  drew  round,  with  the  wind 
upon  our  quarter,  in  hot  pursuit.  The  Ibis  had  not  time 
to  win  a  victory  so  sure,  for  Nero's  "Kid"  frisked  by  the 
proud  pennant,  and  mooring  first  to  the  bank,  was  quiet  as 
the  dozing  donkeys  on  the  shore,  by  the  time  that  the  Ibis 
touched  the  bank,  and  the  Howadji  landed  under  a  salute 
of  one  gun  from  the  Kid.  Salutatory  Nero  had  an  arsenal 
on  board,  but  in  that  hour,  only  one  gun  would  go. 

"We  were  yet  a  mile  or  two  from  the  town,  which  lies 
inland,  and  we  took  our  way  across  the  fields  in  which  a 
few  of  the  faithful  stared  sedately  upon  the  green- vailed 
Nera,  by  whose  side  rode  the  Pacha, — Nero  and  I,  and  a 
running  rabble  of  many  colors,  bringing  up  the  rear. 
Herons  floated  snowily  about  the  green,  woodpeckers, 
sparrows,  and  birds  of  sunset  plumage,  darted  and  fluttered 
over  the  fields,  deluged  with  the  sunlight ;  and  under  a 
gate  of  Saracenic  arch,  heralded  by  the  golden-sleeved 
Commander,  we  entered  a  cool  shady  square.  ^ 

It  was  the  court  of  the  Pacha's  palace,  the  chief  en 
trance  of  the  town.  A  low  stone  bench  ran  along  the 
base  of  the  glaring  white  walls  of  the  houses  upon  the 
square,  whose  windows  were  screened  by  blinds,  as  dark 
as  the  walls  were  white,  and  sitting,  and  lounging  upon 
this  bench,  groups  of  figures, — smoking,  sipping  coffee,  ar- 


88  NILE    NOTES. 


rayed  in  gorgeous  stuffs — for  there  in  sober  sadness  was 
the  court  circle,  with  the  long  beards  flowing  from  the  im 
passible  dark  faces, — gazed  with  serious  sweet  Arabian  eyes 
upon  the  Howadji.  The  ground  was  a  hard  smooth  clay 
floor,  and  an  arcade  of  acacias  on  either  hand,  walled  and 
arched  with  grateful  cool  green,  the  picturesque  repose  of 
the  scene. 

This  was  a  small  square,  and  faded  upon  the  eye, 
forever  daguerreotyped  on  the  memory,  as  we  passed  over 
a  bridge  by  a  Shekh's  tomb,  a  mound  of  white  plaster, 
while  under  an  arch  between  glaring  white  walls,  stood  a 
vailed  woman  with  a  high  water  jar  upon  her  head. 

Threading  the  town,  which  is  built  entirely  of  the  dark 
mud  brick,  we  emerged  upon  the  plain  between  the  houses 
and  the  mountains.  Before  us  a  funeral  procession  was 
moving  to  the  tombs,  and  the  shrill,  melancholy  cry  of  the 
wailers  rang  fitfully  upon  the  low  gusts  that  wailed  more 
grievously,  and  for  a  sadder  sorrow.  We  could  not  over 
take  the  procession,  but  saw  it  disappear  among  the  white 
domes  of  the  cemetery,  as  we  began  to  climb  the  hills  to 
the  caves — temples,  I  might  say,  for  their  tombs  are  tem 
ples  who  reverence  the  dead,  and  these  were  built  with  a 
temple  grandeur  by  a  race  who  honored  the  forms  that 
life  had  honored,  beyond  the  tradition  or  conception  of  any 
other  people.  Great  truths,  like  the  Gods,  have  no  country 
or  age,  and  over  these  ancient  Egyptian  portals  might 
have  been  carved  the  saying  of  the  modern  German 
Novalis,  the  body  of  man  is  the  temple  of  God. 

These  tombs  of  Stabl  Antar,  are  chambers  quarried  in 


ASYOOT.  89 


the  rock.  They  are  not  vast,  only,  but  stately.  The 
elevation  of  the  entrances  and  the  proportion  of  the  cham 
bers  are  full  of  character.  The  entrance  is  not  merely  a 
way  to  get  in,  but  attracts  the  eye  by  its  grand  solemn 
loftiness.  It  harmonizes  in  sentiment  with  the  figures 
sculptured  upon  its  side — those  mysterious  high-shoul 
dered  profile  figures,  whose  secret  is  hidden  forever.  The 
caves  do  not  reach  far  into  the  hills,  and  there  are  square 
pits  at  intervals  upon  the  ground  which  the  donkey  boys 
called  baths.  Haply  without  authority. 

About  these  caves  are  many  bones,  and  a  few  mummied 
human  members,  whereover  many  Nile  poets  wax  melo 
dious.  Eliot  Warburton  speaks  of  "  the  plump  arms  of 
infancy," — 0  poet  Eliot,  were  they  plump  when  you  saw 
them?  When  your  pen  slipped  smoothly  into  that  sen 
tence,  were  you  not  dreaming  of  those  Egyptian  days, 
when  doubtless  babes  were  plump,  and  mothers  fair,  or 
had  you  clearly  in  your  eye  that  shrunken,  blackened, 
shapeless  and  unhuman  mummied  hand  or  foot,  that  your 
one-eyed  donkey  boy  held  in  his  hand  ?  "We  must  after  all 
confess,  0  Eliot,  that  three-thousand-yeared  mummied 
maidens  and  Verde  Grio vanes  of  yesterday  are  not  poetic, 
though  upon  the  Nile. 

There  is  a  broad  platform  in  front  of  the  caves,  over 
looking  the  valley  of  the  river,  the  few  white  tombs  of 
shekhs,  which  dot  the  solitary  places  and  the  town  below 
with  palms  and  acacias,  and  the  slim  minarets  spiring 
silverly  and  strangely  from  the  undefined  dark  mass 
of  mud  houses.  The  Arabian  mountain  line,  stretched 


90  NILE    NOTES. 


straightly  and  sadly  into  the  southern  horizon.  Was  it 
the  day  or  the  place,  was  it  some  antique  ghost  haunting 
its  old  haunts  mournfully,  and  charming  us  with  its  pres 
ence,  that  made  that  broad,  luxuriant  landscape,  with  its 
endless  dower  of  spots  and  objects  of  fame,  so  sad  ? 

Yet,  if  ghost  it  were,  Verde  Griovane  laid  him — Yerde 
and  (running  mounting  breathlessly  on  donkeys,  with 
handkerchiefs  tied  around  their  wide-awakes,  or  slouch- 
hats,  to  "do"  the  Stabl  Antar.  The  donkey-boys  chewed 
sugar-cane  as  they  clucked  and  chirruped  us  back  to  the 
city,  we,  galloping  riotously  over  the  plain,  but  gliding 
slowly  through  the  streets,  wondering  if  every  woman  were 
not  the  Princess  of  China — though  which  Howadji  was  the 
Prince  of  Persia?  The  city  was  simply  an  illuminated 
chapter  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  The  people  were  doing  just 
what  they  do  there,  sitting  in  the  same  shops  in  the  same 
dresses,  the  same  inscriptions  from  the  Koran  straggled 
about  the  walls,  blurred,  defaced,  and  dim — too  much,  I 
fear  me,  as  the  morals  of  the  Koran  straggle  about  Moham- 
madan  brains.  There  were  water-carriers,  and  fruit-car 
riers,  and  bread-carriers.  The  dark  turbaned  Copt,  the 
wily  eyed  Turk,  the  sad-eyed  swarthy  Egyptian,  half  cu 
rious,  half  careless,  smoking,  sipping,  quarreling,  cross- 
legged,  parboiled,  and  indolent. 

Through  the  narrow  bazaar  pressed  demure  donkeys, 
with  panniers  pregnant  of  weeds  and  waste.  Camels, 
with  cairn  contemptuous  eyes,  swung  their  heads  over  all 
others,  and  trod  on  no  naked  feet  in  the  throng  with  their 
own  huge,  soft,  spongy  pedals.  Little  children  straddled 


ASTOOT. 


the  maternal  right  shoulder,  and  rode  triumphant  over 
turbaned  men,  unabashed  by  the  impending  camels.  The 
throng  was  immense,  but  no  sense  of  rush  or  hurry  heated 
the  mind.  There  was  a  constant  murmur,  but  that  and 
the  cool  shade  were  only  the  sound  and  the  atmosphere  of 
the  Arabian  Nights. 

We  stepped  into  smaller  side  passages — veins  leading 
to  the  great  artery  of  the  bazaar — where,  through  some 
open  door,  the  still,  bright  court  of  a  Mosque  was  re 
vealed,  like  the  calm  face  of  a  virgin.  In  one  niche  stood 
a  child  so  handsome,  with  eyes  that  were  not  devoured  by 
flies,  but  round  and  softly  lashed,  and  very  deep  and  ten 
der,  that  I  began  to  feel  that,  after  all,  I  might  be  the 
Prince  of  Persia. 

Yet  it  was  strange  how  the  scene  separated  itself  from 
the  actors.  They  were  essential  as  picturesque  objects, 
but  slovenly,  ugly,  and  repugnant  as  fellow-men.  The 
East,  like  the  natures  which  it  symbolizes,  is  a  splendid 
excess.  There  is  no  measure,  no  moderation  in  its  rich 
ness  and  beauty,  or  in  its  squalor  and  woe.  The  crocodile 
looks  out  from  a  lotus  bank,  the  snake  coils  in  the  corner 
of  the  hareem,  and  a  servant  who  seems  slave  from  the 
soul  out,  conducts  you  to  the  most  dream-like  beautiful  -of 
women.  So,  as  we  sauntered  through  the  bazaar  of 
Asyoot,  we  passed  the  figures  of  men  with  no  trace  of 
manliness,  but  with  faces  full  of  inanity  and  vice.  The 
impression  would  be  profoundly  sad,  if  you  could  feel  their 
humanity.  But  they  are  so  much  below  the  lowest  level 
known  to  a  "Western,  that  they  disappear  from  sympathy. 


92  NILE    NOTES. 


Then  suddenly  passes  a  face  like  a  vision,  and  your  eyes 
turn,  fascinated,  to  follow,  as  if  they  had  seen  the  realized 
perfection  of  an  ideal  beauty. 

Oriental  masculine  beauty  is  so  mild  and  feminine, 
that  the  men  are  like  statues  of  men  seen  in  the  most  mel 
lowing  and  azure  atmosphere.  The  forms  of  the  face  have 
a  surprising  grace  and  perfection.  They  are  not  statues 
of  heroes  and  gods  so  seen,  but  the  budding  beauty  of 
Antinous,  when  he,  too,  had  been  in  this  soft  climate,  the 
ripening,  rounding  lip,  the  arched  brow,  the  heavy  droop 
ing  lid,  the  crushed  closed  eye,  like  a  bud  bursting  with 
voluptuous  beauty,  the  low  broad  brow ;  these  I  remember 
at  Asyoot,  and  remember  forever.  There  is  nothing  "West 
ern  comparable  with  this.  Some  Spanish  and  Italian  faces 
suggest  it.  But  they  lack  the  mellow  harmony  of  hue  and 
form.  Western  beauty  is  intellectual,  but  intellect  has  no 
share  in  this  oriental  charm.  It  is  in  kind  the  same  supe 
riority  which  the  glowing  voluptuousness  of  color  of  the 
Venetian  school  of  painting,  in  which  form  is  secondary 
and  subdued,  has  over  the  serenity  of  the  Roman  and  Tus 
can  schools,  which  worship  form.  And,  according  as  a 
man  is  born  with  an  Eastern  or  Western  nature,  will  he 
prefer  this  or  that  beauty.  The  truest  thing  in  Byron  was 
his  great  oriental  tendency.  Men  of  profoundly  passion 
ate  natures,  instinctively  crave  the  East,  or  must  surround 
themselves  with  an  Eastern  atmosphere  and  influence. 
I  The  face  of  every  handsome  Oriental  is  the  face  of  a  pas 
sionate  poet  in  repose,  and  if  you  have  in  yourself  the  key 
of  the  mystery,  you  will  perceive  poems  there  that  never 


ASYOOT.  93 


have  been  and  never  can  be  written,  more  than  the  sad 
sweet  strength  of  the  Sphinx's  beauty  can  be  described. 
Yet,  young  y earner  for  the  East,  do  not  fancy  that  you 
shall  always  walk  glorious  among  silent  poets  when  you 
touch  that  land,  so  golden-shored  and  houri-peopled  in  our 
cold  imaginations.  The  handsome  of  whom  I  speak,  are 
rare  as  poets  are. 

Not  only  will  you  find  the  faces  revolting,  but  the  body 
is  maimed  to  a  frightful  degree.  Every  second  man  lacks 
an  eye  or  forefinger,  or  he  is  entirely  blind.  The  Egyp 
tians  maimed  themselves  to  escape  Mohammad  Alee's  con 
scription.  Seyd,  the  first  officer  of  the  Ibis,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  put  out  his  right  eye,  that  he  might  have  no  aim,  others 
chop  off  their  forefinger,  that  they  may  not  pull  a  trigger. 

But  more  than  all  disgusting,  is  the  sight  of  flies  feed 
ing  upon  the  acrid  humors  that  exude  from  diseased  eyes ; 
a  misery  that  multiplies  itself.  The  natives  believe  that 
to  wash  this  away  will  produce  blindness.  So  it  remains, 
and  nine  tenths  of  the  young  children  whom  you  pass,  are 
covered,  like  carrion,  with  the  pertinacious  flies,  so  that 
your  own  eyes  water,  though  the  children  seem  not  to 
heed  it.  Thus  accustomed  to  that  point  and  that  food, 
the  fly  makes  directly  for  the  eye  upon  every  new  face 
that  he  explores,  not  without  vivid  visions  to  the  proprie 
tor,  of  imported  virus,  borne  by  these  loathsome  bees  of 


"We  tasted  sweets  at  a  Turkish  Greybeard's — a  fire- 
worshiper,  I  doubt  not,  from  the  intense  twinkling  red 
ness  of  his  mole  eyes ;  then  through  the  slave  market — 


04  NILE    NOTES. 


empty,  for  the  caravan  from  Darfour  was  not  yet  arrived ; 
then  went  on  to  the  bath  and  were  happy. 

Yet,  while  we  lie  turbaned  and  luxurious  upon  these 
cushions  of  the  Bagnio,  inhaling  the  pleasant  tobacco  of 
these  lands,  fancy  for  a  moment  our  sensations,  when,  in 
the  otiose  parboiled  state,  we  raised  vague  eyes  through 
the  reeking  warm  mist  of  the  Sudarium,  and  beheld  Yerde 
Giovane,  gazing  semi-scornfully  through  the  door !  To 
the  otiose  parboiled,  however,  succeeds  the  saponaceous 
state,  in  which  all  merely  human  emotion  slips  smoothly 
away. 

The  crew  returned  at  midnight  to  the  Ibis,  and  tum 
bled  their  newly-baked  bread  upon  the  deck  over  our 
heads,  with  a  confused  shouting  and  scramble,  in  the 
midst  of  which  I  heard  the  gurgling  water,  and  knew  that 
the  famed  Lycopolis  of  old  Greece  (why  "  upstart  Greeks," 
Poet  Harriet?)  was  now  set  away  as  a  choice  bit  of  mem 
ory,  which  no  beautiful  Damascus,  nor  storied  Cairo,  could 
displace,  although  they  might  surpass. 

But  while  the  Ibis  spreads  her  wings  southward  under 
the  stars,  let  us  recall  and  believe  the  fair  tradition  that 
makes  many-minareted  Asyoot  the  refuge  of  Mary  and 
her  child,  during  the  reign  of  Herod.  So  is  each  lovely 
landscape  adorned  with  tales  so  fair,  that  the  whole  land 
is  like  a  solemn-browed  Isis,  radiantly  jeweled. 


XIII. 


THE  sun  is  the  secret  of  the  East.  There  seems  to  be 
no  light  elsewhere.  Italy  simply  preludes  the  Orient.  Sor 
rento  is  near  the  secret.  Sicily  is  like  its  hand  stretched 
forth  over  the  sea.  Their  sunsets  and  dreamy  days  are 
delicious.  You  may  well  read  Hafiz  in  the  odorous  orange 
darkness  of  Sorrento,  and  believe  that  the  lustrous  leaves 
languidly  moving  over  you,  are  palms  yielding  to  the  woo 
ing  of  Arabian  winds.  The  song  of  the  Syrens,  heard  by 
you  at  evening,  from  these  rocks,  as  you  linger  along  the 
shore,  is  the  same  that  Ulysses  heard,  seductive  sweet,  the 
same  that  Hadrian  must  have  leaned  to  hear,  as  he  swept, 
silken-sailed,  eastward,  as  if  he  had  not  more  than  possi 
ble  Eastern  conquest  in  his  young  Antinous! 

But  the  secret  sweetness  of  that  song  is  to  you  what  it 
was  to  Ulysses.  Son  of  the  East,  it  sang  to  him  his  na 
tive  language,  and  he  longed  to  remain.  Son  of  the  "West, 
tarry  not  thou  for  that  sweet  singing,  but  push  bravely  on 
and  land  where  the  song  is  realized. 

The  East  is  a  voluptuous  reverie  of  nature.  Its 
Egyptian  days  are  perfect.  You  breathe  the  sunlight.  You 


96  NILE    NOTES. 


feel  it  warm  in  your  lungs  and  heart.  The  whole  system 
absorbs  sunshine,  and  all  your  views  of  life  become  warmly 
and  richly  voluptuous.  Your  day-dreams  rise,  splendid 
with  sun-sparkling  aerial  architecture.  Stories  are  told, 
songs  are  sung  in  your  mind,  and  the  scenery  of  each,  and 
the  persons,  are  such  as  is  Damascus  seen  at  morning 
from  the  Salaheeyah,  or  Sala-ed-Deen,  heroic  and  grace 
ful,  in  the  rosy  light  of  chivalric  tradition. 

The  Egyptian  sun  does  not  glare,  it  shines.  The  light 
has  a  creamy  quality,  soft  and  mellow,  as  distinguished 
from  the  intense  whiteness  of  our  American  light.  The 
forms  of  our  landscape  stand  sharp  and  severe  in  the 
atmosphere,  like  frost-work.  But  the  Eastern  outlines 
are  smoothed  and  softened.  The  sun  is  the  Mediator,  and 
blends  beautifully  the  separate  beauties  of  the  landscape. 
It  melts  the  sterner  stuff  of  your  nature.  The  intellect  is 
thawed  and  mellowed.  Emotions  take  the  place  of  thought. 
Sense  rises  into  the  sphere  of  soul.  It  becomes  so  exquisite 
and  refined,  that  the  old  landmarks  in  the  moral  world 
begin  to  totter  and  dance.  They  remain  nowhere,  they 
have  no  permanent  place.  Delight  and  satisfaction,  which 
are  not  sensual,  but  sensuous,  become  the  law  of  your 
being ;  conscience,  lulled  all  the  way  from  Sicily  in  the 
soft  rocking  lap  of  the  Mediterranean,  falls  quite  asleep  at 
Cairo,  and  you  take  your  chance  with  the  other  flowers. 
The  thoughts  that  try  to  come,  masque  no  more  as  austere 
and  sad-browed  men,  but  pass  as  large-eyed,  dusky  maid 
ens,  now,  with  fair  folding  arms  that  fascinate  you  to 
their  embrace,  Even  old  thoughts  throng  to  you  in  this 


THK-SUN;  97 


glowing  guise.  The  Howadji  feels  once  more,  how  the 
Nile  flows  behind  history,  and  he  glides  gently  into  the 
rear  of  all  modern  developments,  and  stands  in  the  pure 
presence  of  primitive  feeling — perceives  the  naturalness  of 
the  world's  first  worship,  and  is  an  antique  Arabian,  a 
devotee  of  the  sun,  "  as  he  sails,  as  he  sails." 

For  sun-worship  is  an  instinct  of  the  earliest  races. 
The  sun  and  stars  are  the  first  great  friends  of  man.  By 
the  one  he  directs  his  movements,  by  the  light  of  the 
other,  he  gathers  the  fruit  its  warmth  has  ripened.  Grati 
tude  is  natural  to  the  youth,  and  he  adores  where  he 
loves — and  of  the  Grod  of  the  last  and  wisest  faith,  the  sun 
is  still  the  symbol. 

This  sun  shines  again  in  the  brilliance  of  the  colors  the 
Easterns  love.  The  sculptures  upon  the  old  tombs  and 
temples,  are  of  the  most  positive  colors — red,  blue,  yellow, 
green  and  black,  were  the  colors  of  the  old  Egyptians— and 
still  the  instinct  is  the  same  in  their  costume.  The  poetic 
Howadji  would  fancy  they  had  studied  the  beauty  of 
rainbows  against  dark  clouds.  For  golden  and  gay  are 
the  turbans  wreathed  around  their  dusky  brows,  and 
figures — the  very  people  of  poetry— »of  which  Titian  and 
Paul  divinely  dreamed,  but  could  never  paint,  sit  forever 
in  crimson  turbans — yellow,  blue  and  white  robes  with 
red  slippers  crossed  under  them,  languidly  breathing  smoke 
over  Abana  and  Parphar,  rivers  of  Damascus.  And  the 
buildings  in  which  they  sit,  the  walls  of  baths  and  cafes  • 
and  mosques,  are  painted  in  the  same  gorgeous  taste,  with 
broad  bars  of  red  and  blue,  and  white.  Over  all  this 


98  NILE    NOTES. 


brilliance  streams  the  intense  sunshine,  and  completes 
what  itself  suggested.  So  warm,  so  glowing,  and  rich  is 
the  universal  light  and  atmosphere,  that  any  thing  less 
than  this  in  architecture  would  be  unnatural.  Strange 
and  imperfect  as  it  is,  you  feel  the  heart  of  nature  throb 
bing  all  through  Eastern  art.  Art  there  follows  the 
plainest  hints  of  nature  in  costume  and  architecture  now, 
as  in  the  antique  architecture.  The  fault  of  oriental  art 
springs  from  the  very  excess,  which  is  the  universal  law 
of  Eastern  life.  It  is  the  apparent  attempt  to  say  more 
than  is  sayable.  In  the  infinite  and  exquisite  elaborations 
of  Arabian  architecture,  there  is  the  evident  effort  to  rea 
lize  all  the  subtle  and  strange  whims  of  a  luxuriously 
inspired  imagination  ;  and  hence  results  an  art  that  lacks 
large  features  and  character,  like  the  work  of  a  man  who 
loves  the  details  of  his  dreams. 

The  child's  faith  that  the  East  lies  nearer  the  rising 
sun  is  absurd  until  you  are  there.  Then  you  feel  that  it 
was  his  first  born  and  inherits  the  elder  share  of  his  love 
and  influence.  Wherever  your  eye  falls  it  sees  the  sun 
and  the  sun's  suggestion.  Egypt  lies  hard  against  its 
heart.  But  the  sun  is  like  other  fathers,  and  his  eldest  is 
spoiled. 

As  you  sweep  sun-tranced  up  the  river,  the  strongest, 
most  distinct  desire  of  being  an  artist,  is  born  of  silence  and 
the  sun.  So  saturated  are  you  with  light  and  color,  that 
they  would  seem  to  flow  unaided  from  the  brush.  But  not 
so  readily,  importunate  reader,  from  the  pen.  Words  are 
worsted  by  the  East.  Chiaro  'scuro  will  not  give  it.  A 


THE    SUN.  90 


man  must  be  very  cunning  to  persuade  his  pen  to  reveal 
those  secrets.  But,  an  artist,  I  would  tarry  and  worship  a 
while  in  the  temples  of  Italy,  then  hurry  across  the  sea 
into  the  presence  of  the  power  there  adored.  There  I 
should  find  that  Claude  was  truly  a  consecrated  priest. 
For  this  silence  and  sun  breathe  beauty  along  his  canvas. 
His  pictures  are  more  than  Italian,  more  than  the  real  sun 
set  from  the  Pincio,  for  they  are  ideal  Italy  which  bends  over 
the  Nile  and  fulfills  the  South.  The  cluster  of  boats  with 
gay  streamers  at  .Luxor,  and  the  turbaned  groups  under 
the  temple  columns  on  the  shore,  do  justify  those  sunset 
dreams  of  Claude  Lorraine,  that  stately  architecture  upon 
the  sea. 

I  was  lost  in  a  sun-dream  one  afternoon,  wondering  if, 
Saturn-like,  the  sun  would  not  one  day  utterly  consume 
his  child,  when  I  heard  the  Commander  exclaim,  "  El  Kar- 
nak !"  much  as  Columbus  might  have  heard  "  land"  from 
his  mast-head. 

"  There,"  said  the  Commander ;  and  I  could  scarcely 
believe  such  a  confirmation  of  my  dreams  of  palm  archi 
tecture,  as  my  eye  followed  the  pointing  of  his  finger  to  a 
dim,  distant  point. 

"Those?"  said  I. 

"Those,"  said  he. 

I  looked  again  with  the  glass  and  beheld,  solitary 
and  stately  upon  the  distant  shore,  a  company  of  most  un 
doubted  trees  !  The  Pacha  was  smiling  at  my  side,  and 
declaring  that  he  saw  some  very  fine  palms.  The  Com 
mander  looked  again,  confessed  his  mistake,  and  in  exten^ 


100  NILE    NOTES. 


nation,  I  remarked  that  he  was  not  golden-sleeved.  And, 
after  all,  what  was  Ala-ed-deen,  if  Mr.  Lane  will  spell  it 
so,  without  his  lamp  ? 

A  few  moments  after,  a  small  boat  drew  up  to  us  and 
an  Emerald  Howadji  stepped  on  board.  He  had  left 
Thebes  at  two  o'clock,  which  sounded  strangely  to  me 
when  he  said  it,  for  I  fancied  Thebes  already  to  have  done 
with  time,  and  become  the  property  of  eternity.  He 
coffeed  and  smoked,  and  would  leave  a  duck  for  dinner, 
gave  us  all  the  last  news  from  Thebes,  then  shook  hands 
and  went  over  the  side  of  the  Ibis,  and  out  of  our  knowl 
edge  forever. 

Bon  voyage.  Emerald  Howadji,  and  as  he  pulled  rapidly 
away  with  the  flowing  stream  toward  his  descending  Da- 
habieh,  he  fired  at  a  heron  that  was  streaming  whitely  over 
him  across  the  stream,  a  parting  salute,  possibly,  and  the 
dead  heron  streamed  whitely  after  him  upon  the  river. 


'.v,:'.i:  -    ..  /£  . .  :r  •-    ..  . 
XIV. 


t  '  4 

THE  warm  vaporous  evening  gathered,  and  we  moored 
in  a  broad,  beautiful  bay  of  the  river.  Far  inland  over 
the  shore,  the  mountain  lines  differently  dark,  waved 
away  into  the  night.  There  were  no  masts  upon  the  river 
but  our  own,  and  only  one  neighboring  Sakia  moaned  to 
the  twilight.  Groups  of  turbaned  figures  crouched  upon 
the  bank.  They  looked  as  immovable  forms  of  the  land 
scape  as  the  trees.  Molded  of  mystery,  they  sat  like 
spirits  of  the  dead  land  personified.  In  the  south,  the  Li 
byan  mountains  came  to  the  river,  vague  and  dim, 
stealthily  approaching,  like  the  shy  monsters  of  the  desert. 
The  eye  could  not  escape  the  fascination  of  those  fading 
forms,  for  those  mountains  overhung  Thebes.' 

Moored  under  the  palm-trees  in  the  gray  beginnings 
of  the  evening,  by  the  sad  mud  huts  and  the  squalid  Fel 
lah,  and  within  the  spell  of  the  sighing  Sakia,  I  remem 
bered  Thebes  and  felt  an  outcast  of  time. 

A  world  died  before  our  history  was  born.  The  pomp 
and  splendor  had  passed  along — the  sounds  that  were  the 
words  of  a  great  life  had  swept  forward  into  silence,  and  I 


102  NILE    NOTES. 


lingered  in  the  wake  of  splendor,  like  a  drowning  child  be 
hind  a  ship,  feeling  it  fade  away.  I  remembered  the  "West 
too,  and  its  budding  life,  its  future,  an  unrolled  heaven  of 
new  constellations.  But  it  was  only  a  dream  dizzying  the 
brain,  as  a  man,  thirst-stricken,  dreams  of  flowing  waters. 
Here  for  the  first  time,  probably  the  only  time  of  a  life,  I  felt 
the  grandeur  and  reality  of  the  past  preponderate  over  all 
time.  It  was  the  success  of  Egypt  and  the  East.  A  fading, 
visionary  triumph,  as  of  a  dumb  slave  who  wins  for  a  single 
night  the  preference  of  her  master. 

But  in  that  mountain  shadow  sat  Memnon,  darling  of 
the  dawn,  drawing  reverence  backward  to  the  morning  of 
Time.  I  felt  the  presence  of  his  land  and  age,  sitting 
solemn,  saddening  but  successful,  in  the  hush  of  my  mind, 
as  he  sat,  marvelous,  but  melodious  no  longer,  rapt  in  the 
twilight  repose.  It  was  not  a  permanent  feeling.  The 
ever  young  stars  looked  out,  and  smiled  away  antiquity 
as  a  vapor.  They  who  have  visions  of  the  dead  floating 
fair  in  their  old  beauty  and  power,  do  not  see  them  so 
always,  probably  never  again.  They  repair  like  all  men 
to  their  tombs,  and  dream  vaguely  of  the  departed.  But 
those  tombs  are  temples  to  them,  forever  after. 


XV. 


"  Where  naked  boys,  bridling  tame"  water  snakes, 

Or  charioteering  ghastly  alligators, 
Had  left  on  the  sweet  waters  mighty  wakes 
Of  those  huge  forms " 

DAY  and  night  the  Ibis  did  not  rest,  except  when  the 
wind  fell,  and  her  wings  fell  with  it.  She  passed  Den- 
dereh — Thebes — Luxor.  A  light  breeze  wafted  her  along, 
and  those  sites  of  fame  grew  fair  and  faded,  like  pictures 
on  the  air.  The  upward  Nile  voyage  is  a  Barmecide  feast. 
You  do  not  pause,  except  at  Asyoot  for  the  crew  to  bake 
bread,  and  at  Esne,  dear  to  Verde  Griovane — so  you  enjoy 
the  great  fames  and  places  by  name  only ;  as  Shacabac, 
the  Barber's  sixth  brother,  delighted  in  the  sweet  bread, 
and  the  chicken  stuffed  with  pistachio,  and  the  golden 
cups  of  wine,  although  they  did  not  appear  until  he  had 
rehearsed  his  emotions.  So  finally,  you,  having  partaken 
the  Barmecide  feast  of  the  ascent,  and  passed  Memphis — 
Abydos — Dendereh — Edfoo,  and  Kalabsheh,  clap  your 
hands  at  Aboo  Simbel,  and  returning — taste  the  reality  of 
Egypt. 

But  we  were  to  stop  at  Esne,  for  another  bread-baking 


104  NILE    NOTES. 


for  the  crew.     There  was  an  unwonted  display  of  fine 

"  raiment  as  the  afternoon  waned — coarse  hempen  blankets 

gave   place   to  blue   cotton  kaftans — the   same  that  the 

female  Bull   insisted   upon   calling   Nightgowns.     Under 

these,  the  white  vest,  with  the  row  of  close  set  buttons, 

was  not  unhandsome.     But  when  the  ample  turban  went 

round  the  head — how  great  was  that  glory  !     With  horror 

( I  beheld  Seyd  contemplating r his  slippers,  and  thence  knew 

that  Esne  Was  a  place  of  especial  importance. 

Strange  is  the  magic  of  a  turban.  Eastern  garments 
are  always  graceful,  and  truly  the  turban  is  the  crown  of 
grace,  and  honored  as  the  protector  of  the  human  head 
should  be.  There  are  fashions  and  colors,  in  turbans. 
The  Turkish  is  heavy  and  round — the  Syrian  broad  and 
flat,  roll  outside  roll  of  rich  Cashmere.  A  special  chair  is 
consecrated  to  the  repose  of  the  turban — and  losing  the 
substance  in  the  form,  when  an  irreverent  donkey  threw  a 
Shekh  of  dignity  into  the  dirt,  and  among  the  camel  legs 
of  a  bazaar,  causing  him  to  shed  his  turban  in  tumbling, 
the  reverent  crowd  eagerly  pursued  the  turban,  and  rescu 
ing  it,  bore  it  with  care  in  their  hands,  shouting  "  lift  up 
the  crown  of  El  Islam" — while  the  poor  neglected  Shekh 
angrily  cried  from  the  dirt,  "lift  up  the  Shekh  of  El  Islam." 
The  lords  of  the  land,  arid  the  luxurious,  wreathe  around 
their  heads  Cashmere  shawls  of  texture  so  delicate,  that 
they  may  be  drawn  through  a  thin  signet  ring,  yet  they 
are  as  full,  and  rich  upon  the  head,  as  the  forms  of  sun 
set  clouds  whose  brilliance  they  emulate. 

This  day  before  Esne,  Abdallah,  our  Samsonian  Ab- 


THE    CROCODILE.  105 

dallah,  sat  glorious  in  the  sunset  in  an  incredible  turban. 
He  was  not  used  to  wear  one,  content  on  ordinary  days 
with  a  cap  that  had  been  white.  At  first,  as  if  to  break 
his  head  gently  into  the  unaccustomed  luxury,  I  saw  him . 
sitting  upon  the  boatside  very  solemnly — his  brows  cinc 
tured  with  what  seemed  to  be  a  mighty  length  of  dish- 
clout.  I  fancied  that  having  assisted  at  the  washing  of 
the  dishes,  he  had  wreathed  his  brows  triumphantly  with 
the  clouts,  as  Indian  warriors  girdle  themselves  with  scalps. 
But  presently  stationing  the  weasen-faced  crew's  cook 
near  the  mainmast,  with  one  end  of  a  portentously  long 
white  robe  of  cotton,  he  posted  himself  with  the  other  end 
by  the  foremast,  and  then  gradually  drew  the  boy  toward 
him,  as  he  turned  his  head  like  a  crank,  and  so  wound 
himself  up  with  glory.  Afterward  I  saw  him  moving 
with  solemn  cautiousness,  and  with  his  hands  ready — as 
if  he  were  the  merest  trifle  top-heavy.  Fate  paints  what 
it  will  upon  the  canvas  of  memory,  and  I  must  forever 
see  the  great,  gawky,  dog-faithful,  abused  Samsonian 
Abdallah,  sitting  turbaned  on  the  boatside  in  the  sunset. 

"  A  crocodile,"  shouted  the  Commander.  And  the  Ho- 
wadji  saw  for  the  first  time  the  pet  monster  of  the  Nile. 

He  lay  upon  a  sunny  sand  shore,  at  our  rightj  a  hide 
ous,  horrible  monster — a  scaled  nightmare  upon  the  day. 
He  was  at  least  twenty  feet  long ;  but  seeing  the  Ibis  with 
fleet  wings  running,  he  slipped,  slowly  soughing,  head  fore 
most  and  leisurely,  into  the  river. 

It  was  the  first  blight  upon  the  beauty  of  the  Nile. 
The  .squalid  people  were  at  least  picturesque,  with  their 


106  NILE    NOTES. 


costume  and  water-jars  on  the  shore.  But  this  mole-eyed, 
dragon-tailed  abomination,  who  is  often  seen  by  the  same 
picturesque  people,  sluggishly  devouring  a  grandam  or 
child  on  the  inaccessible  opposite  bank,  was  utterly  loath 
some.  Yet  he  too  had  his  romantic  side,  the  scaly  night 
mare  !  so  exquisite  and  perfect  are  the  compensations  of 
nature.  For  if,  in  the  perpetual  presence  of  forms  and 
climate  so  beautiful,  and  the  feeling  of  a  life  so  intense  as 
the  Egyptian,  there  is  the  constant  feeling  that  the  shadow 
must  be  as  deep  as  the  sun  is  bright,  and  that  weeds  must 
foully  flaunt  where  flowers  are  fairest ;  so,  when  the  shadow 
sloped  and  the  weed  was  seen,  they  had  their  own  sugges 
tions  of  an  opposite  grace,  and  in  this  loathsome  spawn  of 
slime  and  mystic  waters,  it  was  plain  to  see  the  Dragon  of 
oriental  romance.  Had  the  Howadji  followed  this  feeling 
and  penetrated  to  Buto,  they  might  have  seen  Sinbad's 
valley.  For  there  Herodotus  saw  the  bones  of  winged 
snakes,  as  the  Arabians  called  them.  These,  without  doubt, 
were  the  bones  of  serpents,  which,  being  seized  by  birds 
and  borne  aloft,  seemed  to  the  astonished  people  to  be  ser 
pents  flying,  and  were  incorporated  into  the  Arabian  ro 
mances  as  worthy  wonders. 

The  Pacha  felt  very  like  St.  George,  and  longed  to  de 
stroy  ;  the  dragon;  but  having  neither  sword,  spear,  nor 
shield — only  that  trusty  one-barreled  gun,  and  no  jolly- 
boat  (I  understood  then  why  all  our  English  friends  have 
that  boat),  he  was  obliged  to  see  the  enemy  slinking  un 
touched  into  the  stream,  and  relieve  his  mind  by  rehears 
ing  to  me  the  true  method  of  ending  dragons — opportunity 


THE    CROCODILE.  107 

and  means  volentibus.  You  do  not  see  the  crocodile  with 
out  a  sense  of  neighborhood  to  the  old  Egyptians,  for  they 
are  the  only  live  relics  of  that  .dead  time,  and  Ramses  the 
Grreat  saw  them  sprawled  on  the  sunny  sand  as  Howadji 
the  Little  sees  them  to-day. 

The  crocodile  was  not  universally  honored.  In  Lower 
Egypt  was  it  especially  sacred,  and  it  was  buried  with 
dead  kings  in  the  labyrinth — too  sacred  in  death  even  for 
Herodotus  to  see — and  doubtless  quite  as  much  to  our  ad 
vantage  unseen  by  him,  for  had  he  been  admitted  to  the 
tombs,  our  reverent  and  reverend  father  would  probably 
have  "  preferred"  to  say  nothing  about  them. 

In  some  regions,  however,  there  were  regular  crocodile 
hunts,  and  the  prey  was  eaten— a  proceeding  necessarily 
so  disgusting  to  the  devotees  of  the  dragon,  that  they  were 
obliged  to  declare  war  against  the  impious,  and  endeavor 
to  inhibit  absolutely  the  consumption  of  crocodile  chops. 
They  did  not  regard  Dragon  himself  as  a  Grod,  but  as 
sacred  to  the  Grod  Savak,  who  was  crocodile-headed,  and  a 
deified  form  of  the  sun. 

For,  in  the  city  of  crocodiles,  founded  gratefully  by 
King  Menas,  whom  a  crocodile  ferried  over  the  lake  Moenis 
upon  his  back,  when  the  disloyal  hunting-hounds  drove 
royalty  into  the  water,  was  a  crocodile  so  sacred,  that  ,it 
was  kept  separately  in  an  especial  lake,  and  suffered  the  „ 
touching  of  the  priests,  with  a  probable  view  to  touching 
them  effectually  on  some  apt  occasion.  This  was  the  croc 
odile  Sachus,  says  Sir  Gardner,  quoting  Strabo,  and  Stra- 
bo's  host,  a  man  of  mark— "  one  of  our  rnost  distinguished 


108  NILE    NOTES. 


citizens"  in  the  city  of  crocodiles — showed  him  and  his 
friends  the  sacred  curiosities,  conducting  them  to  the  brink 
of  the  lake,  on  whose  bank  the  animal  was  extended. 
While  some  of  the  priests  opened  its  mouth,  one  put  in  the 
cake,  and  then  the  meat,  after  which  the  wine  was  poured 
in.  *Fhe  crocodile  then  dived  and  lounged  to  the  other  side 
of  the  lake  for  a  similar  lunch,  offered  by  another  stranger. 
It  has  no  tongue,  says  Plutarch,  speaking  through  Sir  Gard 
iner,  and  is  therefore  regarded  as  an  image  of  the  Deity 
itself — "the divine  'reason  needing  not  speech,  but  going 
through  still  and  silent  paths,  while  it  administers  the 
world  with  justice." 

Who  shall  say  that  the  Egyptians  of  old  were  not 
poets  ?  The  ears  of  crocodiles  were  decked  with  ear-rings, 
and  the  fore  feet  with  bracelets.  They  loved  life  too  well, 
those  elder  brethren  of  ours,  to  suffer  any  refuse  in  their 
world.  As  with  children,  every  thing  was  excellent  and 
dear.  If  they  hated,  they  hated  with  Johnsonian  vigor, 
and  which  of  the  Persian  poets  is  it  who  says  that  hate  is 
only  love  inverted  ?  Nor  revile  their  animal  worship,  since 
they  did  not  make  all  Dragons  (rods,  but  had  always  some 
sentiment  of  gratitude  and  reverence  in  the  feeling  which 
consecrated  any  animal.  There  were  but  four  animals  uni 
versally  sacred— the  Ibis,  Hawk,  Cynocephalus  and  Apis. 

Animal  worship  was  only  a  more  extended  and  less  po 
etic  Manicheism.  Simple  shepherds  loved  the  stars  and 
worshiped  them.  But  shepherds  lose  their  simplicity  in 
towns,  and  their  poetic  worship  goes  out  through  prose  to  a 
machinery  of  forms.  The  distance  from  the  Arabian  wor- 


THE    CROCODILE.  109 

ship  of  stars  to  the  mystic  theology  of  Egypt,  is  no  greater 
than  from  the  Syrian  simplicity  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
dusky  dogmas  of  Rome  or  Greneva. 

But  what  right  have  our  pages  to  such  names  as  Apis 
and  Cynocephalus  ?  The  symmetry,  not  the  significance 
of  hieroglyphs^  is  the  shrine  of  our  worship.  Feebly  flies 
the  Ibis  while  the  sun  sets  in  a  palm-grove,  and  long  sad 
vapors,  dashed  with  dying  light,  drift  and  sweep  formlessly 
through  the  blue,  like  Ossianic  ghosts  about  a  dying  hero, 
who  wail  by  waving  mournfully  their  flexile  length.  The 
Reis  beat  the  tarabuka.  Abdallah  blew  the  arghool,  a 
reedy  pipe  that  I  dreamed  might  draw  Pan  himself  to  the 
shore,  or  a  nymph  to  float  in  a  barque  of  moon-pearled 
lotus,  across  the  calm.  Aboo  Seyd  clinked  the  castanets, 
and  the  crew  sang  plaintively,  clapping  their  hands.  So 
we  slid  into  Esne,  and  as  the  Ibis  nestled  in  the  starlight 
to  the  shore,  she  shook  poor  little  lithe  Congo  from  her 
wing.  He  fell  with  a  cry  and  a  heavy  plunge  upon  the 
deck.  The  Howadji  ran  forward,  but  found  no  bones 
broken,  only  cuts  and  bumps,  and  bruises,  which  the 
Pacha  knew  how  to  treat.  The  crew  shook  doleful  heads, 
and  were  sure  that  it  was  the  work  of  the  evil  eye— the 
glance  of  envy  cast  upon  the  Ibis  by  a  neighboring  drago 
man,  when  he  heard  that  she  was  only  eighteen  days  from 
Cairo.  Congo  was  brought  to  the  rear  and  laid  upon  a* 
matress  and  cushions.  All  that  Pachalic  skill  could  do 
was  done,  and  you,  ye  Indian  youths  and  maidens,  sages 
and  hags  of  the  West,  sing  to  the  sleeping  Congo,  the 
Pacha's  salvatory  successes. 


110  NILE    NOTES. 


I  saw  dimly  a  mud  town,  and  on  the  bank  under  a 
plane-tree  a  little  hut,  yclept  by  the  luxurious  Orientals, 
coffee-shop.  Thither,  being  robed  with  due  magnificence, 
the  Commander  proceeded,  and  bestowed  the  blessing  of 
the  golden-sleeved  bournouse  upon  the  undeserving  Es- 
nians. 


-     -      • 

XVI, 


G-REAT  is  travel  !  Yesterday  Memnon,  to-day  a  croco 
dile,  to-morrow  dancing-girls  —  and  all  sunned  by  a  Jan 
uary,  whose  burning  brilliance  shames  our  fairest  June 
fervors.  This  comes  of  going  down  to  the  sea  in  ships, 
and  doing  business  upon  the  great  waters,  and  Sinbading 
round  the  world  generally. 

Yet  there  are  those  who  cultivate  chimney  corners,  and 
chuckle  that  a  rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss,  who  fillip  their 
fingers  at  Memnon  and  the  sources  of  the  white  Nile,  who 
order  warm  slippers  and  declare  that  traveling  is  a  fooPs 
paradise.  Yes.  But,  set  in  the  azure  air  of  that  paradise 
stands  the  Parthenon,  perfect  as  Homer.  There  are  the 
Coliseum,  the  Forum,  and  the  earth-quaking  memories  of 
Rome.  There  Memnon  sings  and  the  Grondolier.  There 
wave  palms,  and  birds  of  unimagined  plumage  float. 
There  are  the  mossy  footsteps  of  history,  the  sweet  sources 
of  song,  the  sacred  shrines  of  religion. 

Objective  all,  I  know  you  will  respond,  fat  friend  of 
the  warm  slippers,  and  you  will  take  down  your  Coleridge 
and  find, 


112  NILE    NOTES. 


"  0  lady,  we  receive  but  what  we  give, 
'  And  in  our  life  alone  does  nature  live." 

Yes — again,  but  I  mistrust  your  poet  was  abroad  when 
he  sang  these  numbers.  The  melodious  mystic  could  not 
reach  the  fool's  paradise  through  the  graceful  Grecian 
gate,  or  the  more  congenial  Egyptian  Pylon — so  through 
rainbow  airs,  opium-pinioned,  he  overflew  the  walls,  and 
awhile  breathed  other  airs.  The  lines  are  only  partially 
true.  Elia,  copying  accounts  in  the  India  House,  could 
not  enjoy  in  the  wood  upon  which  he  wrote,  the  charm  of 
the  Tree  which  had  "  died  into  the  desk."  And  though 
nature  be  the  mirror  of  our  moods — we  can  yet  sometimes 
escape  ourselves — as  we  can  sometimes  forget  all  laws. 
"Go  abroad  and  forget  yourself,"  is  good  advice.  The 
Prodigal  was  long  and  ruinously  abroad  before  he  came 
to  himself.  And  poets  celebrate  the  law  unlimited,  which 
circumstances  constantly  limit.  You  would  fancy  Thom 
son  an  early  riser.  Yet  that  placid  poet,  who  rented  the 
castle  of  indolence,  and  made  it  the  House  Beautiful,  so 
that  all  who  pass  are  fain  to  tarry,  used  to  rise  at  noon, 
and  sauntering  into  the  garden  eat  fruit  from  the  trees 
with  his  hands  in  his  pocket,  and  then  and  there  com 
posed  sonorous  apostrophes  to  the  rising  sun. 

Traveling  is  a  fool's  paradise,  to  a  fool.  But  to  him, 
staying  at  home  is  the  same  thing.  A  fool  is  always  in 
paradise.  But  into  that  delight  a  wise  man  can  no  more 
penetrate,  than  a  soul  into  a  stone.  If  you  are  a  fool,  0 
friendly  reader  of  the  rolling  stone  theory,  you  are  in  the 
paradise  you  dread,  and  hermetically  closed  in.  The  great 


GETTING    ASHORE.  113 

gates  clanged  awful  behind  you  at  your  birth.  But  if 
you  are  wise,  you  can  never  by  any  chance  get  in. 
Allons,  take  your  slippers,  I  shall  take  passage  with  the 
fool. 

All  this  we  say  being  somewhat  sleepy,  under  the 
bank  at  Esne,  on  the  verge  of  tumbling  in.  Good  night ! 
But  one  word  !  You  facetious  friends  in  the  hot  slippers^ 
what  is  our  so  stable-seeming,  moss-amassing  Earth  doing  ? 
Truly  what  Rip  Van  Winkle  heard  the  aged  men  do 
among  the  mountains — rolling,  rolling,  rolling  forever, 

0  friends  of  the  Verde  family,  have  you  duly  meditated 
these  things  ? 


•••  '   •-.;  fctStFV 

1  >!  V-.      ?***• 


XVII. 

jfim 


FRAIL  are  the  fair  of  Esne.  Yet  the  beauty  of  gossa 
mer  webs  is  not  less  beautiful,  because  it  is  not  sheet-iron. 
Let  the  panoplied  in  principle  pass  Esne  by.  There  dwell 
the  gossamer-moraled  Grhawazee.  A  strange  sect  the 
Grhawazee  —  a  race  dedicate  to  pleasure. 

Somewhere  in  these  remote  regions  lay  the  Lotus 
islands.  Mild-eyed  and  melancholy  were  the  forms  that 
swam  those  calm  waters  to  the  loitering  vessel,  and 
wooed  the  Mariners  with  their  heart's  own  longings  sooth- 
lier  sung  — 

"  Here  are  cool  mosses  deep 
And  through  the  moss  the  ivies  creep, 
And  in  the  stream  the  long-leaved  flowers  weep, 
And  from  the  craggy  ledge  the  Poppy  hangs  in  sleep." 

To  those  enchanted  islands  and  that  summer  sea,  is 
not  this  river  of  unknown  source  the  winding  avenue? 
Through  its  silence,  ever  silenter  —  along  the  peaceful 
waving  of  its  palms  —  azure-arched  and  lotus-shored,  leads 
it  not  backward  to  that  dream  ? 

Yes—  the  Howadji  felt  it.     The  day  whispered  it  at 


PAIR    FRAILTY.  IU 


noon.  The  palms  at '  sunset  waved  it  from  the  shore. 
The  stars  burning  ever  brighter  with  the  deepening  south, 
breathed  it  with  their  greater  beauty  all  night  long,'"  Mild- 
eyed,  melancholy"  were  the  men.  But  along  the  shores 
of  this  Labyrinth  which  we  so  dreamily  thread,  are  stations 
posted,  to  give  exquisite  earnest  of  our  borne.  And  here 
are  maidens,  not  men,  vowed  to  that  fair  forgetfulness  of 
yesterday  and  to-morrow  which  is  the  golden  garland  of 
to-day. 

These  azure  airs,  soft  and  voluptuous,  are  they  not 
those  that  blew  beyond  the  domain  of  conscience — remote 
region  of  which  Elia  dreamed  ?  Is  not  the  Bishop  of  that 
diocese  unmitred  here  ?  For  the  nonce  I  renounce  my 
fealty,  and  air  myself  beyond  those  limits ;  and  when  I 
return,  if  mortal  may  return  from  the  Lotus  islands,  and 
from  streams  enchanted,  that  good  Bishop  shall  only 
lightly  touch  me  with  his  crosier  for  the  sake  of  bright 
Kushuk  Arnem,  and  the  still-eyed  Xenobi. 

Did  you  sup  at  the  Barmecide's  in  Bagdad,  with  Shac- 
abac  and  myself,  that  Arabian  night  ?  Well,  the  G-hazee- 
yah  Kushuk  Arnem,  a  girl  of  Palestine,  claims  descent 
from  him.  Or  did  you  assist  at  Herodias'  dancing  before 
the  royal  Herod?  Well,  the  Grhazeeyah  Kushuk  Arnem 
dances  as  Herodias  danced.  Or  in  those  Pharaoh  days, 
something  musty  now,  did  you  frequent  the  court  balls  ? 
Well,  this  is  the  same  dancing,  and  needless  was  it  to  have 
lived  so  long  ago,  for  here  you  have  the  same  delight  in 
Kushuk  Arnem.  Or  seated  under  olives-trees  in  stately 
Spain,  with  Don  Quixote  de  la  Mancha,  were  your  eyes 


116  NILE   NOTES. 


enamored  of  the  Fandango  ?  That  was  well,  but  January 
is  not  June  in  Spain,  and  in  Esne  the  Howadji  saw  Kus- 
huk  Arnem,  and  the  gracious  Grhazeeyah's  dance  was  the 
model  of  the  Spanish. 

For  the  Egyptian  dancing-girls  are  of  a  distinct  race, 
and  of  an  unknown  antiquity.  The  Egyptian  gipsy s,  but 
not  unanimously,  claim  the  same  Barmecidian  descent, 
and  the  Grhawazee,  or  dancing-girls,  each  one  of  which  is 
termed  Grhazeeyah,  wear  divers  adornments,  like  those  of 
the  gipsys.  They  speak  the  language  and  profess  the  faith 
of  the  Egyptians — nay,  like  Hadji  Hamed,  the  long  cook 
of  the  Ibis,  they  perform  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca  for  the 
solace  of  their  own  souls  and  bodies,  or  those  of  some  ac 
companying  ascetic.  The  race  of  Ghawazee  is  kept  dis 
tinct.  They  marry  among  themselves,  or  some  Grhazeeyahj 
weary  of  those  sunny  slopes,  fuori  le  mure  of  conscience, 
wondering  haply  whither  they  do  slope,  retreats  into  the 
religious  retirement  of  the  hareem.  When  she  has  made 
a  vow  of  repentance,  the  respectable  husband  is  not  consid 
ered  disgraced  by  the  connection. 

For  the  profession  of  the  Grhawazee  is  dancing  ed  altri 
generi.  They  are  migratory,  moving  from  town  to  town 
with  tents,  slaves,  and  cattle,  raising  readily  their  homely 
home,  and  striking  it  as  speedily.  In  the  large  cities,  they 
inhabit  a  distinct  quarter  of  the  region  especially  conse 
crate  to  pleasure.  In  villages,  they  sojourn  upon  the  out 
skirts.  At  all  fairs,  they  are  the  fairest  and  most  fasci 
nating.  But  they  mostly  affect  religious  festivals — the 
going  out  to  tombs  in  the  desert  a  few  miles  from  the 


FAIR    FRAILTY.  /117 


cities.  For  on  the  natal  days  of  saints  inhabiting  those 
tombs,  a  religious  spree  takes  place  upon  the  spot,  and 
scenes  are  presented  to  the  contemplative  eye,  not  unlike 
those  of  Methodist  camp-meetings.  At  such  times  and 
places  they  are  present  "  by  thousands,  by  millions,"  cried 
the  unmathematical  Commander,  ecstatic  with  his  theme, 
but  again  without  the  golden  sleeve. 

In  golden  sleeves  alone,  0  Commander,  is  dignity  and 
wisdom. 

I  said  it  was  a  sect  vowed  to  pleasure.  From  earliest 
youth  they  are  educated  to  their  profession.  They  do  not 
marry  until  they  have  commenced  a  public  career.  Then 
the  husband  is  the  grand  Vizier  and  Kapellmeister  of  his 
wife's  court. 

.  Let  the  moralizing  mind  reflect  here,  that  the  pursuit 
of  pleasure  is  an  hereditary  tenet,  dear  to  the  husband  as 
to  the  wife,  who  can  not  be  false,  because  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  faithfulness.  And  let  the  Moral  Reform  Society 
carefully  avoid  judging  this  frailty  on  principle,  for  in 
tribes,  traditions  of  usage  become  principle,  by  the  vice  of 
enlightened  lands,  where  it  is  a  very  sorrowful  and  shame 
ful  thing,  bred  in  deceit  and  ending  in  despair.  In  Eu 
rope,  society  squeezes  women  into  this  vortex.  Then  it  is 
a  mere  pis-aller  for  existence,  and  loathsome  much  more  to 
the  victims  themselves  than  to  others.  In  America,  a  fair 
preludes  the  foul.  Seduction  smooths  the  slopes  of  the 
pit,  although  once  in,  society  here,  as  there,  seals  inexora 
bly  the  doom  of  the  fallen.  For  the  Grhazeeyah  who  turns 
from  her  ways,  there  is  the  equality  with  other  wives,  and 


118  NILE    NOTES. 


no  taunting  for  the  Past.  For  the  woman  who  once  falls 
in  England  or  America,  there  is  no  resurrection  to  sympa 
thy  and  regard.  The  world,  being  without  sin,  casts  end 
less  paving-stones,  until  hope,  heart,  and  life  are  quite 
crushed  out. 

Moralizing  at  Esne  ! 

Although  the  (rhawazee,  when  they  marry  out  of  the 
tribe,  do  not  dishonor  their  husbands  in  public  estimation, 
they  are  by  no  means  held  honorable  while  they  practice 
their  profession.  This  is  for  many  reasons.  But  let  no 
moral  reformer  flatter  himself  upon  the  moral  sense  of  the 
East.  "  No,"  said  the  Grol  den-sleeve,  "  I  wouldn't  trust 
my  own  mother."  The  Grhawazee  are  not  honorable,  be 
cause,  being,  as  Mr.  Lane  says,  the  most  beautiful  of 
Egyptian  women,  they  show  to  the  sun,  moon,  stars,  and 
all  human  eyes,  their  unvailed  faces.  Then  they  receive 
men  into  their  own  apartments — let  us  not  desecrate  the 
sacred  name  of  hareem.  And  they  dance  unvailed  in  pub 
lic,  and  if  you  may  believe  the  shuddering  scandal  of  the 
saints  at  Cairo,  each  of  whom  has  a  score  of  women  to 
dance  for  him  alone,  they  adorn  with  nude  grace  the  mid 
night  revels  of  the  Cairene  rakes. 

Mohammad  Alee's  mercury  of  virtue  rose  in  his  impo 
tent  age  to  such  a  height  of  heat,  that  he  banished  all  the 
Cairene  Grhawazee  to  Esne,  which  sounded  morally,  until 
the  curious  discovered  that  Esne  was  the  favorite  river 
retreat  of  the  Pacha,  and  the  moment  they  disappeared 
from  Cairo,  they  were  replaced  by  boys  dressed  like  women, 
who  danced  as  the  Ghawazee  danced,  and  imitated  their 


FAIR   FEAILTY.  119 

costume,  and  all  the  womanliness  of  a  woman,  growing  their 
thair,  vailing  their  faces,  kohling  then*  eyelashes,  hennaing 
their  finger  and  toe  nails. 

And  there  was  also  another  set  of  boy-dancers,  called 
Grink,  into  the  melancholy  mystery  of  which  name  the 
discreet  and  virtuous  refrain  from  prying.  The  Howadji, 
too,  is  Herodotean  for  the  nonce,  and  "  thinks  it  better  it 
should  not  be  mentioned." 


, 

-.,,'•',          •'" v  .:. 
*'-•* 


•  -,.    ^;.frf^\,,  <  •*_ 

•  <':>•'••*•:• 


XVIII. 

f&it 


And  so  frailty  was  all  boated  up  the  Nile  to  Esne.  Not 
quite,  and  even  if  it  had  been,  Abbas  Pacha,  grandson  of 
Mohammad  Alee,  and  at  the  request  of  the  old  Pacha's 
daughter,  has  boated  it  all  back  again.  Abbas  Pacha 
heritor  of  the  shreds  and  patches  of  the  Pharaohs'  throne, 
and  the  Ptolemies  and  the  Cleopatras.  He  did  well  to 
honor  the  Ghawazee  by  his  permission  of  return,  for  what 
was  the  swart  queen  but  a  glorious  Gfhazeeyah  ?  Ask 
Marc  Antony  and  Julius  Cesar.  Nor  shall  Rhodopis  be 
forgotten,  centuries  older  than  Cleopatra,  supposed  to  be 
the  builder  of  one  of  the  pyramids,  and  of  wide  Grecian 
fame. 

Herodotus  tells  her  story.  She  was  a  Thracian  and 
fellow-servant  of  Esop.  Xanthus  the  Samian  brought  her 
to  Egypt,  and  Charaxus,  brother  of  Sappho,  ransomed  her, 
for  which  service  when  Charaxus  returned,  Sappho  griev 
ously  gibed  him  in  an  ode.  Rhodopis  became  very  rich 
and  very  famous,  and  sent  gifts  to  Delphi.  "And  now," 
says  our  testy  and  garrulous  old  guide,  as  if  to  wash  his 


FAIR    FRAILTY.  121 


hands  of  her  iniquity,  "  I  have  done  speaking  of  Rho- 
dopis." 

Even  grandfather  Mohammad  did  not  boat  all;  the 
frailty  up  the  Nile.  That  would  have  been,  if  the  beauti 
ful  Grhazeeyah  had  been  the  sole  Egyptian  sinner.  But 
this  especial  sin  pays  a  tenth  of  the  whole  tax  of  Egypt, 
and  the  Grhawazee  are  but  the  most  graceful  groups  of 
Magdalens,  not  at  all  the  crowd.  The  courtesans  who 
went  with  vailed  faces  discreetly,  who  were  neither  hand 
some  nor  of  any  endowment  of  grace  or  charm  to  draw  the 
general  eye ; — widows  and  wives,  who,  in  the  absence  of 
their  lords,  mellowed  their  morals  for  errant  cavaliers  ; — the 
dead- weighted,  sensual,  ungraceful,  inexcusable,  and  dis 
gusting  mass  remained,  and  flourished  more  luxuriantly. 

The  solidest  sin  always  does  remain ; — the  Houris  as 
more  aerial  are  blown  away,  the  sadder  sinners  cling.  Law 
and  propriety  yearly  pour  away  into  perdition  a  flowing 
surface  of  addled  virtue,  vice-stained,  and  a  small  portion 
of  veritable  vice.  But  the  great,  old,  solid  sin,  sticks 
steadfastly,  like  the  lump  of  ambergris  in  the  Sultan's  cup, 
flavoring  the  whole  draught.  For  not  even  the  friend  of 
the  warm  slippers  and  rolling  stone  theory,  can  suppose 
that  the  Muslim  are  a  continent  race,  or  that  Mohammad 
Alee  was  Simeon  Stylites,  because  he  exported  the  dancing- 
girls. 

Hear  what  Abu  Taib  said  in  the  gardens  of  Shubra. 

Once  there  was  a  Pacha,  who,  after  drinking  much  wine 
all  his  days,  lost  his  taste,  and  fell  in  danger  of  his  life  if 
he  drank  of  it  any  more.  And  the  Pacha  ordered  all  the 

F 


122  NILE    NOTES. 


wine  in  the  country  to  be  cast  into  the  river.  And  the  fair 
fountains  that  flowed  sweet  wine  of  exquisite  exhilaration 
before  the  mosques,  and  upon  the  public  place,  were  seized 
and  utterly  dried  up.  But  the  loathsome,  stagnant  tanks, 
and  ditches  of  beastly  drunkenness  that  festered  concealed 
behind  white  walls,  were  untouched,  and  flowed  poison. 
And  the  Pacha  heard  what  had  been  done,  and  said,  it  was 
well.  And  far  lands  heard  of  the  same  thing,  and  said, 
"  Lo !  a  great  prince,  who  removes  sores  from  his  inheri 
tance,  and  casts  out  vice  from  his  dominions." 

There  are  English  poets  who  celebrate  the  pleasant 
position  of  the  Eastern  woman,  and  it  is  rather  the  "West 
ern  fashion  of  the  moment  to  fancy  them  not  so  very  mis 
erably  situated.  But  the  idea  of  woman  disappears  entire 
ly  from  your  mind  in  the  East  except  as  an  exquisite  and 
fascinating  toy.  The  women  suggest  houris,  perhaps,  but 
never  angels.  Devils,  possibly,  but  never  friends.  And 
now,  Pacha,  as  we  stroll  slowly  by  starlight  under  the 
palms,  by  the  mud  cabins  round  which  the  Fellaheen,  or 
peasants,  sit,  and  their  fierce  dogs  bark,  and  see  the  twin 
tombs  of  the  shekhs  gleaming  white  through  the  twilight, 
while  we  ramble  toward  the  bower  of  Kushuk  Arnem  and 
the  still-eyed  Xenobi,  tell  me  truly  by  the  sworded  Orion 
above  us,  if  you  cherish  large  faith  in  the  virtue  of  men, 
who,  of  a  voluptuous  climate,  born  and  nursed,  shut  up 
dozens  of  the  most  enticing  women  in  the  strict  and  sa 
cred  seclusion  of  the  hareem,  and  keep  them  there  without 
knowledge,  without  ambition — petted  girls  with  the  proud 
passions  of  Southern  women,  seeing  him  only  of  men,  jeal- 


FAIR    FRA.ILTY.  123 


ous  of  each  other,  jealous  of  themselves,  the  slaves  of  his 
whims,  tender  or  terrible,  looking  to  him  for  their  sole  ex 
citement,  and  that  solely  sensual — rarely  tasting  the  bliss 
of  becoming  a  mother,  and  taught  to  stimulate  in  inde 
scribable  ways  the  palling  and  flagging  passions  of  their 
keeper. 

Individually,  I  lay  no  great  stress  on  the  objections  of 
such  gentry  to  the  unvailed  dancing  of  beautiful  women, 
or  to  their  pleasurable  pursuit  of  pleasure  ;  nor  do  I  find 
much  morality  in  it.  I  am  glad  to  grant  the  Oriental  great 
virtue  ;  and  do  not  wish  to  whine  at  his  social  and  national 
differences  from  the  "West.  At  Alexandria,  let  the  West 
fade  from  your  horizon^  and  you  will  sail  fascinated  for 
ever.  This  Howadji  holds  that  the  Grhawazee  are  the  true 
philosophers  and  moralists  of  the  East,  and  that  the  ha- 
reem  and  polygamy  in  general,  are  without  defense, 
viewed  morally.  Viewed  picturesquely  under  palms,  with 
delicious  eyes  melting  at  lattices,  they  are  highly  to  be 
favored  and  encouraged  by  all  poets  and  disciples  of  Epi 
curus. 

Which,  as  you  know  as  well  as  I,  we  will  not  here 
discuss.  But,  as  I  am  out  of  breath,  toiling  up  that  steep 
sentence  of  the  hareem,  while  we  more  leisurely  climb  the 
last  dust  heap  toward  that  bower,  the  sole  white  wall  of 
the  village  (how  Satan  loves  these  dear  deceits,  as  excel 
lent  Dr.  Bunyan  Cheever  would  phrase  it)  soothe  me 
soothly  with  those  limpid  lines  of  Mr.  Milnes,  who  holds 
strongly  to  the  high  human  and  refining  influence  of  the 
hareem.  Does  Young  England  wish  to  engraft  polygamy 


124  NILE    NOTES. 


among  the  other  patriarchal  benefits  upon  stout  old  Eng 
land? 

"  Thus  in  the  ever-closed  hareem, 
As  in  the  open  Western  home, 
Sheds  •womanhood  her  starry  gleam, 

Over  our  being's  busy  foam. 
Through  latitudes  of  varying  faith, 

Thus  trace  we  still  her  mission  sure, 
To  lighten  life,  to  sweeten  death ; 
And  all  for  others  to  endure." 

j . 

Every  toad  carries  a  diamond  in  its  head,  says  Hope 
and  the  Ideal.  But  in  any  known  toad  was  it  ever  found  ? 
retorted  the  Howadji,  cutting  adrift  his  Western  morals. 


XIX. 


THE  Howadji  entered  the  bower  of  the  Grhazeeyah.  A 
damsel  admitted  us  at  the  gate,  closely  vailed,  as  If 
women's  faces  were  to  be  seen  no  more  forever.  Across  a 
clean  little  court,  up  stone  steps  that  once  were  steadier, 
and  we  emerged  upon  a  small  inclosed  stone  terrace,  the 
sky-  vaulted  anti-chamber  of  that  bower.  Through  a  little 
door  that  made  us  stoop  to  enter,  we  passed  into  the 
peculiar  retreat  of  the  Grhazeeyah.  It  was  a  small,  white, 
oblong  room,  with  but  one  window,  opposite  the  door,  and 
that  closed.  On  three  sides  there  were  small  holes  to 
admit  light  as  in  dungeons,  but  too  lofty  for  the  eye  to 
look  through,  like  the  oriel  windows  of  Sacristies.  Under 
these  openings  were  small  glass  vases  holding  oil,  on  which 
floated  wicks.  These  were  the  means  of  illumination. 

A  divan  of  honor  filled  the  end  of  the  room  —  on  the 
side  was  another,  less  honorable,  as  is  usual  in  all  Egyp 
tian  houses  —  on  the  floor  a  carpet,  partly  covering  it.  A 
straw  matting  extended  beyond  the  carpet  toward  the 
door,  and  between  the  matting  and  the  door  was  a  bare 
space  of  stone  floor,  whereon  to  shed  the  slippers. 


126  NILE    NOTES. 


Hadji  Hamed,  the  long  cook,  had  been  ill,  but  hearing 
of  music  and  dancing  and  Grhawazee,  he  had  turned  out 
for  the  nonce,  and  accompanied  us  to  the  house,  not  all 
unmindful  possibly  of  the  delectations  of  the  Mecca  pil 
grimage.  He  stood  upon  the  stone  terrace  afterward,  look 
ing  in  with  huge  delight.  The  solemn,  long  tomb-pil 
grim  !  The  merriest  lunges  of  life  were  not  lost  upon  him, 
notwithstanding. 

The  Howadji  seated  themselves  orientally  upon  the 
divan  of  honor.  To  sit  as  Westerns  sit,  is  impossible  upon 
a  divan.  There  is  some  mysterious  necessity  for  crossing 
the  legs,  and  this  Howadji  never  sees  a  tailor  now  in 
lands  civilized,  but  the  dimness  of  Eastern  rooms  and 
bazaars,  the  flowingness  of  robe,  and  the  coiled  splendor 
of  the  turban,  and  a  world  reclining  leisurely  at  ease,  rise 
distinct  and  dear  in  his  mind — like  that  Sicilian  mirage 
seen  on  divine  days  from  Naples — tout  fleet  as  fair.  To 
most  men  a  tailor  is  the  most  unsuggestive  of  mortals. 
To  the  remembering  Howadji  he  sits  a  poet. 

The  chibouque  and  nargileh  and  coffee  belong  to  the 
divan,  as  the  parts  of  harmony  to  each  other.  I  seized  the 
flowing  tube  of  a  brilliant  amber-hued  nargileh,  such  as 
Hafiz  might  have  smoked,  and  prayed  Isis  that  some  stray 
Persian  might  chance  along  to  complete  our  company. 
The  Pacha  inhaled  at  times  a  more  sedate  nargileh,  at 
times  the  chibouque  of  the  Commander,  who  reclined  upon 
the  divan  below. 

A  tall  Egyptian  female,  filially  related  I  am  sure  to  a 
gentle  giraffe  who  had  been  indiscreet  with  a  hippopotamus, 


KUSHUKr  ARNEM.,  127 

moved  heavily  about,  lighting  the  lamps,  and  looking  as  if 
her  bright  eyes  were  feeding  upon  the  flame,  as  the 
giraffes  might  browse  upon  lofty  autumn  leaves.  There 
was  something  awful  in  this  figure.  She  was  the  type  of 
those  tall,  angular,  Chinese-eyed,  semi-smiling,  wholly 
homely  and  bewitched  beings  who  sit  in  eternal  profile  in 
the  sculptures  of  the  temples.  She  was  mystic,  like  the 
cow-horned  Isis.  I  gradually  feared  that  she  had  come 
off  the  wall  of  a  tomb,  probably  in  Thebes  hard  by,  and 
that  our  Grhawazee  delights  would  end  in  a  sudden  em 
balming,  and  laying  away  in  the  bowels  of  the  hills  with 
a  perpetual  prospect  of  her  upon  the  walls. 

Avaunt,  Specter !  The  Fay  approaches,  and  Kushuk 
Arnem  entered  her  bower.  A  bud  no  longer,  yet  a  flower 
not  too  fully  blown.  Large  laughing  eyes,  red  pulpy 
lips,  white  teeth,  arching  nose,  generous-featured,  lazy, 
carelessly  self-possessed,  she  came  dancing  in,  addressing 
the  Howadji  in  Arabic — words  whose  honey  they  would 
not  have  distilled  through  interpretation.  Be  content  with 
the  aroma  of  sound,  if  you  can  not  catch  the  flavor  of 
sense — and  flavor  can  you  never  have  through  another 
mouth.  Smiling  and  Pantomime  were  our  talking,  and  one 
choice  Italian  word,  she  knew — buono.  Ah !  how  much 
was  buono  that  choice  evening.  Eyes,  lips,  hair,  form, 
dress,  every  thing  that  the  strangers  had  or  wore,  was 
endlessly  buono.  Dancing,  singing,  smoking,  coffee, — 
buono )  buono,  buonissimo  !  How  much  work  one  word 

will  do! 

(  , 

The  Ghazeeyah  entered — not  mazed  in  that  azure  mist 


128  NILE    NOTES. 


of  gauze  and  muslin  wherein  Cerito  floats  fascinating 
across  the  scene,  nor  in  the  peacock  plumage  of  sprightly 
Lucille  Grahn,  nor  yet  in  that  June  cloudiness  of  aery 
apparel  which  Carlotta  affects,  nor  in  that  sumptuous 
Spanishness  of  dark  drapery  wherein  Fanny  is  most 
Fanny. 

The  glory  of  a  butterfly  is  the  starred  brilliance  of  its 
wings.  There  are  who  declare  that  dress  is  divine,  who 
aver  that  an  untoileted  woman  is  not  wholly  a  woman, 
and  that  you  may  as  well  paint  a  saint  without  his  halo, 
as  describe  a  woman  without  detailing  her  dress.  There 
fore,  while  the  coarser  sex  vails  longing  eyes,  will  we  tell 
the  story  of  the  Ghazeeyah's  apparel. 

Yellow  morocco  slippers  hid  her  feet,  rosy  and  round. 
Over  these  brooded  a  bewildering  fullness  of  rainbow  silk. 
Turkish  trowsers  we  call  them,  but  they  are  shintyan  in 
Arabic.  Like  the  sleeve  of  a  clergyman's  gown,  the  lower 
end  is  gathered  somewhere,  and  the  fullness  gracefully 
overfalls.  I  say  rainbow,  although  to  the  Howadji's  little 
cognizant  eye  was  the  shintyan  of  more  than  the  seven 
orthodox  colors.  In  the  bower  of  Kushuk,  nargileh- clouded, 
coffee-scented,  are  eyes  to  be  strictly  trusted  ? 

Yet  we  must  not  be  entangled  in  this  bewildering  bril 
liance.  A  satin  jacket  striped  with  velvet  and  of  open 
sleeves,  wherefrom  floated  forth  a  fleecy  cloud  of  under- 
sleeve,  rolling  adown  the  rosy  arms,  as  June  clouds 
down  the  western  rosiness  of  the  sky,  inclosed  the  bust, 
A  shawl  twisted  of  many  folds  cinctured  the  waist,  con 
fining  the  silken  shintyan,  A  golden  necklace  of  charms 


KUSHUK    ARNEM.  120 

girdled  the  throat,  and  the  hair  much  unctuated,  as  is  the 
custom  of  the  land,  was  adorned  with  a  pendent  fringe  of 
black  silk,  tipped  with  gold,  which  hung  upon  the  neck 
behind. 

Let  us  confess  to  a  dreamy  vaporous  vail,  overspread 
ing,  rather  suffusing  with  color,  the  upper  part  of  the  arms 
and  the  lower  limits  of  the  neck.  That  rosiness  is  known 
as  tob  to  the  Arabians — a  mystery  whereof  the  merely 
masculine  mind  is  not  cognizant.  Beneath  the  tob,  truth 
allows  a  beautiful  bud-burstiness  of  bosom.  Yet  I  swear, 
by  John  Bunyan,  nothing  so  aggravating  as  the  Howadji 
beholds  in  saloons  unnamable  nearer  the  Hudson  than 
the  Nile.  This  brilliant  cloud,  whose  spirit  was  Kushuk 
Arnem,  our  gay  Grhazeeyah,  gathered  itself  upon  a  divan, 
and  she  inhaled  vigorously  a  nargileh.  A  damsel  in  tob 
and  shintyan,  exhaling  azure  clouds  of  aromatic  smoke, 
had  not  been  displeasing  to  that  Persian  poet,  for  whose 
coming  I  had  prayed  too  late. 

But  more  welcome  than  he,  came  the  still-eyed  Xenobi. 
She  entered  timidly  like  a  bird.  The  Howadji  had  seen 
doves  less  gracefully  sitting  upon  palm-boughs  in  the  sun 
set,  than  she  nestled  upon  the  lower  divan.  A  very  dove 
of  a  G-hazeeyah,  a  quiet  child,  the  last  born  of  Terpsichore. 
Blow  it  from  Mount  Atlas,  a  modest  dancing-girl.  She  sat 
near  this  Howadji,  and  handed  him,  0  Haroun  Alrashid ! 
the  tube  of  h?s  nargileh.  Its  serpentine  sinuosity  flowed 
through  her  fingers,  as  if  the  golden  gayety  of  her  costume 
were  gliding  from  her  alive.  It  was  an  electric  chain  of 
communication,  and  never  until  some  Xenobi  of  a  houri 


130  NILE   NOTES. 


hands  the  Howadji  the  nargileh  of  Paradise,  will  the  smoke 
of  the  weed  of  Shiraz  float  so  lightly,  or  so  sweetly  taste. 

Xenobi  was  a  mere  bud,  of  most  flexile  and  graceful 
form — ripe  and  round  as  the  Spring  fruit  of  the  tropics. 
Kushuk  had  the  air  of  a  woman  for  whom  no  surprises 
survive.  Xenobi  saw  in  every  new  day  a  surprise,  haply 
in  every  Howadji  a  lover. 

She  was  more  richly  dressed  than  Kushuk.  There 
were  gay  gold  bands  and  clasps  upon  her  jacket.  Various 
necklaces  of  stamped  gold  and  metallic  charms  clustered 
around  her  neck,  and  upon  her  head  a  bright  silken  web, 
as  if  a  sun-suffused  cloud  were  lingering  there,  and  dis 
solving,  showered  down  her  neck  in  a  golden  rain  of  pen 
dants.  Then,  0  Venus !  more  azure  still,  that  delicious 
gauziness  of  tob,  whereof  more  than  to  dream  is  delirium. 
Wonderful  the  witchery  of  a  tob  !  Nor  can  the  Howadji 
deem  a  maiden  quite  just  to  nature,  who  glides  through 
the  world,  unshintyaned  and  untobed. 

Xenobi  was  perhaps  sixteen  years  old,  and  a  fully  de 
veloped  woman.  Kushuk  Arnem,  of  some  half-dozen  Sum 
mers  more.  Kushuk  was  unhennaed.  But  the  younger, 
as  younger  maidens  may,  graced  herself  with  the  genial 
gifts  of  nature.  Her  delicate  filbert  nails  were  rosily 
tinted  on  the  tips  with  henna,  and  those  pedler  poets 
meeting  her  in  Paradise  would  have  felt  the  reason  of  their 
chant — "Odors  of  Paradise,  0  flowers  of 'the  henna!" 
But  she  had  no  kohl  upon  the  eyelashes,  nor  like  Fatima 
of  Damascus,  whom  the  Howadji  later  saw,  were  her  eye 
brows  shaved  and  replaced  by  thick,  black  arches  of  kohl. 


KUSHUK    ARNEM.  131 

Yet  fascinating  are  the  almond-eyes  of  Egyptian  women, 
bordered  black  with  the  kohl,  whose  intensity  accords  with 
the  sumptuous  passion  that  mingles  moist  and  languid 
with  their  light.  Eastern  eyes  are  full  of  moonlight — 
Eastern  beauty  is  a  dream  of  passionate  possibility,  which 
the  Howadji  would  fain  awaken  by  the  same  spell  with 
which  the  Prince  of  faery  dissolved  the  enchanted  sleep 
of  the  princess.  Yet  kohl  and  henna  are  only  beautiful 
for  the  beautiful.  In  a  coffee-shop  at  Esne,  bold-faced 
among  the  men,  sat  a  coarse  courtesan  sipping  coffee  and 
smoking  a  nargileh,  whose  kohled  eyebrows  and  eyelashes 
made  her  a  houri  of  hell. 

"  There  is  no  joy  but  calm,"  I  said,  as  the  moments, 
brimmed  with  beauty,  melted  in  the  starlight,  and  the 
small  room  became  a  bower  of  bloom  and  a  Persian  garden 
of  delight.  We  reclined,  breathing  fragrant  fumes,  and 
interchanging,  through  the  Grolden-sleeved,  airy  nothings. 
The  Howadji  and  the  Houris;  had  little  in  common  but 
looks.  Soulless  as  Undine,  and  suddenly  risen  from  a 
laughing  life  in  watery  dells  of  lotus,  sat  the  houris, 
and,  like  the  mariner,  sea-driven  upon  the  enchanted  isle 
of  Prospero,  sat  the  Howadji,  unknowing  the  graceful  gos 
sip  of  Faery.  But  there  is  a  faery  always  folded  away  in 
our  souls,  like  a  bright  butterfly  chrysalised,  and  sailing 
eastward,  layer  after  layer  of  propriety,  moderation,  defer 
ence  to  public  opinion,  safety  of  sentiment,  and  all  the 
thick  crusts  of  compromise  and  convention  roll  away,  and 
bending  southward  up  the  Nile,  you  may  feel  that  faery 
fairly  flutter  hor  wings.  And  if  you  pause  at  Esne,  she 


132  NILE    NOTES. 


will  fly  out,  and  lead  you  a  will-o'-the-wisp  dance  across 
all  the  trim  sharp  hedges  of  accustomed  proprieties,  and 
over  the  barren  flats  of  social  decencies.  Dumb  is  that 
faery,  so  long  has  she  been  secluded,  and  can  not  say 
much  to  her  fellows.  But  she  feels  and  sees  and  enjoys 
all  the  more  exquisitely  and  profoundly  for  her  long  se 
questration. 

Presently  an  old  woman  came  in  with  a  tar,  a  kind  of 
tambourine,  and  her  husband,  a  grisly  old  sinner,  with  a 
rabab,  or  one-stringed  fiddle.  Old  Hecate  was  a  gone  Grha- 
zeeyah — a  rose-leaf  utterly  shriveled  away  from  rosiness. 
No  longer  a  dancer,  she  made  music  for  dancing.  And 
the  husband,  who  played  for  her  in  her  youth,  now  played 
with  her  in  her  age.  Like  two  old  votaries  who  feel  when 
they  can  no  longer  see,  they  devoted  all  the  force  of  life 
remaining,  to  the  great  game  of  pleasure,  whose  born 
thralls  they  were. 

There  were  two  tarabukas  and  brass  castanets,  and 
when  the  old  pair  were  seated  upon  the  carpet  near  the 
door,  they  all  smote  their  rude  instruments,  and  a  wild 
clang  raged  through  the  little  chamber.  Thereto  they 
sang.  Strange  sounds — such  music  as  the  angular,  carved 
figures  upon  the  Temples  would  make,  had  they  been  con 
versing  with  us — sounds  to  the  ear  like  their  gracelessness 
to  the  eye. 

This  was  Egyptian  Polyhymnia  preluding  Terpsichore. 


' :' v-v^- 

XX. 


"  The  wind  is  fair, 
The  boat  is  in  the  bay, 
And  the  fair  mermaid  Pilot  calls  away  " 

'  .   -'       v' 

KUSHUK  ARNEM  quaffed  a  goblet  of  hemp  arrack.  The 
beaker  was  passed  to  the  upper  divan,  and  the  Howadji, 
sipping,  found  it  to  smack  of  aniseed.  It  was  strong 
enough  for  the  Pharaohs  to  have  imbibed — even  for  Her 
od  before  beholding  Herodias,  for  these  dances  are  the  same. 
This  dancing  is  more  ancient  than  Aboo  Simbel.  In  the 
land  of  the  Pharaohs,  the  Howadji  saw  the  dancing  they 
saw,  as  uncouth  as  the  temples  they  built.  This  dancing 
is  to  the  ballet  of  civilized  lands,  what  the  gracelessness 
of  Egypt  was  to  the  grace  of  Greece.  Had  the  angular 
figures  of  the  Temple  sculptures  preluded  with  that  mu 
sic,  they  had  certainly  followed  with  this  dancing. 

Kushuk  Arnem  rose  and  loosened  her  shawl  girdle  in 
such  wise,  that  I  feared  she  was  about  to  shed  the  frivol 
ity  of  dress,  as  Venus  shed  the  sea-foam,  and  stood  oppo 
site  the  divan,  holding  her  brass  castanets.  Old  Hecate 
beat  the  tar  into  a  thunderous  roar.  Old  husband  drew 


134  NILE    NOTES. 


sounds  from  his  horrible  rabab,  sharper  than  the  sting  of 
remorse,  and  Xenobi  and  the  Giraffe  each  thrummed  a 
tarabuka  until  I  thought  the  plaster  would  peel  from  the 
wall.  Kushuk  stood  motionless,  while  this  din  deepened 
around  her,  the  arrack  aerializing  her  feet,  the  Howadji 
hoped,  and  not  her  brain.  The  sharp  surges  of  sound 
swept  around  the  room,  dashing  in  regular  measure  against 
her  movelessness,  until  suddenly  the  whole  surface  of  her 
frame  quivered  in  measure  with  the  music.  Her  hands 
were  raised,  clapping  the  castanets,  and  she  slowly  iurned 
upon  herself,  her  right  leg  the  pivot,  marvelously  convuls 
ing  all  the  muscles  of  her  body.  When  she  had  completed 
the  circuit  of  the  spot  on  which  she  stood,  she  advanced 
slowly,  all  the  muscles  jerking  in  time  to  the  music,  and 
in  solid,  substantial  spasms. 

It  was  a  curious  and  wonderful  gymnastic.  There 
was  no  graceful  dancing— once  only  there  was  the  move 
ment  of  dancing  when  she  advanced,  throwing  one  leg 
before  the  other  as  gipsys  dance.  But  the  rest  was  most 
voluptuous  motion — not  the  lithe  wooing  of  languid  pas 
sion,  but  the  soul  of  passion  starting  through  every  sense, 
and  quivering  in  every  limb.  It  was  the  very  intensity 
of  motion,  concentrated  and  constant.  The  music  still 
swelled  savagely  in  maddened  monotony  of  measure. 
Hecate  and  the  old  husband,  fascinated  with  the  Grhazee- 
yah's  fire,  threw  their  hands  and  arms  excitedly  about 
their  instruments,  and  an  occasional  cry  of  enthusiasm 
and  satisfaction  burst  from  their  lips.  Suddenly  stooping, 
still  muscularly  moving,  Kushuk  fell  upon  her  knees,  and 


TERPSICHORE.  135 


writhed  with  body,  arms  and  head  upon  the  floor,  still  in 
measure — still  clanking  the  castanets,  and  arose  in  the  same 
manner.  It  was  profoundly  dramatic.  The  scenery  of 
the  dance  was  like  that  of  a  characteristic  song.  It  was  a 
lyric  of  love  which  words  can  not  tell — profound,  orien 
tal,  intense  and  terrible.  Still  she  retreated,  until  the 
constantly  down-slipping  shawl  seemed  only  just  clinging' 
to  her  hips,  and  making  the  same  circuit  upon  herself,  she 
sat  down,  and  after  this  violent  and  extravagant  exertion 
was  marbly  cold. 

Then  timid  but  not  tremulous,  the  young  Xenobi  arose 
bare-footed,  and  danced  the  same  dance — not  with  the 
finished  skill  of  Kushuk,  but  gracefully  and  well,  and 
with  her  eyes  fixed  constantly  upon  the  elder.  "With  the 
same  regular  throb  of  the  muscles  she  advanced  and  re 
treated,  and  the  Paradise-pavilioned  prophet  could  not 
have  felt  his  heavenly  hareem  complete,  had  he  sat  smok 
ing  and  entranced  with  the  Howadji.  . ,  .: 

Form  so  perfect  was  never  yet  carved  in  marble— not 
the  Venus  is  so  mellowly  molded.  Her  outline  has  not 
the  voluptuous  excess  which  is  not  too  much — which  is 
not  perceptible  to  mere  criticism,  and  is  more  a  feeling 
flushing  along  the  form,  than  a  greater  fullness  of  the  form 
itself.  The  Greek  Venus  was  sea-born,  but  our  Egyptian 
is  sun-born.  The  brown  blood  of  the  sun  burned  along 
her  veins — the  soul  of  the  sun  streamed  shaded  from  her 
eyes.  She  was  still,  almost  statuesquely  still.  When  she 
danced  it  was  only  stillness  intensely  stirred,  and  followed 
that  of  Kushuk  as  moonlight  succeeds  sunshine.  As  she 


136  NILE    NOTES. 


went  on,  Kushuk  gradually  rose,  and  joining  her  they 
danced  together.  The  Epicureans  of  Cairo  indeed,  the 
very  young  priests  of  Venus,  assemble  the  G-hawazee  in 
the  most  secluded  Adyta  of  their  dwellings,  and  there 
eschewing  the  mystery  of  the  Hintyan,  and  the  gauziness 
of  the  tob,  they  behold  the  unencumbered  beauty  of  these 
beautiful  women.  At  festivals  so  fair,  arrack,  raw  brandy, 
and  "  depraved  human  nature,"  naturally  improvise  a 
ballet  whereupon  the  curtain  here  falls. 

Suddenly,  as  the  clarion  call  awakens  the  long-slumber 
ing  spirit  of  the  war-horse,  old  Hecate  sprang  to  her  feet, 
and  loosening  her  girdle,  seized  the  castanets,  and  with 
the  pure  pride  of  power  advanced  upon  the  floor,  and 
danced  incredibly.  Crouching  before  like  a  wasted  old 
willow,  that  merely  shakes  its  drooping  leaves  to  the 
tempest — she  now  shook  her  fibers  with  the  vigor  of  a 
nascent  elm,  and  moved  up  and  down  the  room  with  a 
miraculous  command  of  her  frame. 

In  Venice  I  had  heard  a  gray  Grondolier,  dwindled  into 
a  Ferryman,  awakened  in  a  moonlighted  midnight,  as  we 
swept  by  with  singers  chanting  Tasso,  pour  his  swan- 
song  of  magnificent  memory  into  the  quick  ear  of  night. 

In  the  Champs  Elysees  I  had  heard  a  rheumy-eyed 
Invalide  cry  with  the  sonorous  enthusiasm  of  Austerlitz, 
"  Vive  Napoleon,"  as  a  new  Napoleon  rode  by. 

It  was  the  Indian  summer  goldening  the  white  winter — 
the  Zodiacal  light  far  flashing  day  into  the  twilight.  And 
here  was  the  same  in  dead  old  Egypt — in  a  Grhazeeyah  who 
had  brimmed  her  beaker  with  the  threescore  and  ten  drops 


TERPSICHORE.  137 


of  life.  Not  more  strange,  and  unreal,  and  impressive  in 
their  way,  the  inscrutable  remains  of  Egypt,  sand-shrouded 
but  undecayed,  than  .in  hers  this  strange  spectacle  of  an 
efficient  Coryphee  of  seventy. 

Old  Hecate !  thou  wast  pure  pomegranate  also,  and  not 
banana,  wonder  most  wonderful  of  all — words  which  must 
remain  hieroglyphics  upon  these  pages — and  whose  expli 
cation  must  be  sought  in  Egypt,  as  they  must  come  hither 
who  would  realize  the  freshness  of  Karnak. 

Slow  sweet  singing  followed.  The  refrain  was  plain 
tive,  like  those  of  the  boat  songs — soothing,  after  the  ex 
citement  of  the  dancing,  as  nursery  lays  to  children  after 
a  tired  day.  "  Buono,"  Kushuk  Arnem !  last  of  the  Ar- 
nems,  for  so  her  name  signified.  Was  it  a  remembering 
refrain  of  Palestine,  whose  daughter  you  are?  "  Taib," 
dove  Xenobi !  Fated,  shall  I  say,  or  favored  ?  Pledged 
life-long  to  pleasure !  Who  would  dare  to  be  ?  Who  but 
a  child  so  careless  would  dream  that  these  placid  ripples 
of  youth  will  rock  you  stormless  to  El  Dorado? -.'•-,? 

0  Allah !  and  who  cares  ?  Refill  the  amber  nargileh, 
Xenobi — another  fingan  of  mellow  mocha.  Yet  another 
strain  more  stirring.  Hence,  Hecate  !  shrivel  into  invisi 
bility  with  the  thundering  tar,  and  the  old  husband  with 
his  diabolical  rabab.  Waits  not  the  one-eyed  first  officer 
below,  with  a  linen  lantern,  to  pilot  us  to  the  boat  ?  And 
the  beak  of  the  Ibis  points  it  not  to^  Syene,  Nubia,  and  a 
world  unknown? 

Farewell,  Kushuk !  Addio,  still-eyed  dove !  Almost  thou 
persuadest  me  to  pleasure.  0  Wall-street,  Wall-street !  be 
cause  you  are  virtuous,  shall  there  be  no  more  cakes  and  ale? 


XXI. 


WE  departed  at  dawn.  Before  a  gentle  gale  the  Ibis 
fleetly  flew,  in  the  starlight,  serenaded  by  the  Sakias. 

These  endless  sighing  Sakias  !  There  are  fifty  thou» 
sand  of  them  in  Egypt,  or  were,  when  Grandfather  Mo 
hammad  was.  They  required  a  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  oxen  to  work  them.  But  the  murrain  swept  away 
the  cattle,  and  now  the  Nile  shores  are  strewn  with  the 
falling  mud  walls  of  Sakias,  ruins  of  the  last  great  Egyp 
tian  reign.  Like  huge  summer  insects,  they  doze  upon 
the  bank,  droning  a  melancholy,  monotonous  song.  The 
slow,  sad  sound  pervades  the  land  —  one  calls  to  another, 
and  he  sighs  to  his  neighbor,  and  the  Nile  is  shored  with 
sound  no  less  than  sand.  Their  chorus  is  the  swan-song 
of  Egypt.  For  Egypt  is  effete.  The  race  is  more  ruined 
than  the  temples.  Nor  shall  there  be  a  resurrection  of  an 
exhausted  people,  until  fading  roses,  buried  in  the  ground, 
take  root  again,  or  Memnon  calls  musically  once  more, 
down  the  far  glad  valley  of  the  Nile. 

The  Sakia  is  the  great  instrument  of  irrigation.  It  is 
a  rude  contrivance  of  two  perpendicular  wheels,  turned  by 


SAKIAS.  139 

a  horizontal  cog.  The  outer  wheel  is  girdled  with  a  string 
of  earthen  jars,  which  descend  with  every  revolution  into 
the  pit  open  to  the  river,  in  which  the  wheel  turns.  As 
the  jars  ascend,  they  empty  themselves  into  a  trough, 
thence  conducted  away,  or  directly  into  a  channel  of 
earth ;  and  the  water  flowing  into  the  fields,  by  little  ca 
nals,  invests  each  separate  small  square  patch.  There  are 
no  fences,  and  the  valley  of  the  Nile  is  divided  into  endless 
inclosures  by  these  shallow  canals.  The  surface  of  the 
country  is  regularly  veined,  and  the  larger  channels  are 
the  arteries  fed  by  the  great  Sakia  heart.  Overflowing  or 
falling,  the  Nile  is  forever  nourishing  Egypt,  and  far  forth- 
looking  from  the  propylons  of  temples,  you  may  see  the 
land  checkered  with  slight  silver  streaks — tokens  of  its 
fealty  and  the  Nile's  devotion. 

The  Sakia  is  worked  by  a  pair  of  oxen.  Upon  the 
tongue  of  the  crank  which  they  turn,  sits  a  boy,  drowsing 
and  droning,  and  beating  their  tail-region  all  day  long. 
Nor  is  the  sad  creak  of  the  wheel  ever  soothed  by  any 
unctuous  matter,  which  the  proprietor  appropriates  to  his 
own  proper  person,  and  which  would  also  destroy  the 
cherished  creak.  So  sit  the  boys  along  the  Nile,  among 
the  cotton,  tobacco,  corn,  beans,  or  whatever  other  crop, 
and  by  beating  the  tail-region  of  many  oxen,  cause  the 
melancholy  music  of  the  river.  It  has  infinite  variety, 
but  a  mournful  monotony  of  effect.  Some  Sakias  are 
sharp  and  shrill ;  they  almost  shriek  in  the  tranced  still 
ness.  These  you  may  know  for  the  youth — these  are  the 
gibes  of  greenness.  But  sedater  creaks  follow.  A  plain- 


140  NILE    NOTES. 


tive  monotony  of  moan  that  is  helpless  and  hopeless.  This 
is  the  general  Sakia  sigh.  It  is  as  if  the  air  simmered  into 
sound  upon  the  shore.  It  is  the  overtaxed  labor  of  the 
land  complaining,  a  slave's  plaining — low  and  lorn  and 
lifeless.  Yet  as  the  summer  seems  not  truly  summer,  un^ 
til  the  locusts  wind  their  dozy  reeds,  so  Egypt  seems  not 
truly  Egypt,  except  when  the  water-wheels  sadden  the 
silence.  It  is  the  audible  weaving  of  the  spell.  The  still 
ness  were  not  so  still  without  it,  nor  the  temples  so  antique, 
nor  the  whole  land  so  solitary  and  dead. 

In  books  I  read  that  it  is  the  Ranz  des  Vaches  of  the 
Fallaheen,  and  that  away  from  the  Nile  they  sigh  for  the 
Sakia,  as  it  sighs  with  them  at  home.  And  truly  no  pic 
ture  of  the  river  would  be  perfect  that  had  not  the  water- 
wheels  upon  the  shore.  They  abound  in  Nubia,  and  are 
there  taxed  heavily — some  seventeen  of  our  dollars  each 
one.  The  Howadji  wonders  how  such  a  tax  can  be  paid, 
and  the  Nubian  live.  But  if  it  be  not  promptly  rendered 
the  owner  is  ejected.  He  may  have  as  much  land  as  he 
can  water,  as  much  Arabian  sand  or  Libyan,  as  he  can 
coax  the  Nile  to  fructify.  And  there  nature  is  compas 
sionate.  For  out  of  what  seems  sheer  sand  you  will  see 
springing  a  deep-green  patch  of  grain. 

In  upper  Egypt  and  Nubia  the  Shadoof  is  seldom  seen. 
That  is  a  man-power  Sakia,  consisting  simply  of  buckets 
swinging  upon  a  pole,  like  a  well  bucket,  and  dipped  into 
the  river  and  emptied  above  by  another  into  the  channel. 
There  are  always  two  buckets,  and  the  men  stand  opposite, 
only  girded  a  little  about  the  loins,  or  more  frequently  not 


SAKIAS.  141 

at  all,  and  plunging  the  bucket  rapidly.  It  is  exhausting 
labor,  and  no  man  is  engaged  more  than  two  or  three  hours 
at  a  time.  If  the  bank  is  very  high,  there  are  two  or  more 
ranges  of  Shadoofs,  the  lower  pouring  into  the  reservoirs  of 
the  upper.  The  Shadoofs  abound  in  the  sugar-cane  region 
about  Minyeh.  They  give  a  spectral  life  to  the  shore. 
The  bronze  statues  moving  as  by  pulleys,  and  the  regular 
swing  of  the  Shadoof,  ^here  is  no  creak,  but  silently  in 
the  sun  the  poles  swing  and  the  naked  laborers  sweat. 

Sakia-spelled  the  Ibis  flew,  and  awakening  one  mid 
night,  I  heard  the  murmurous  music  of  distant  bells  filling 
all  the  air.  As  one  on  Summer  Sundays  loiters  in  flowery 
fields  suburban,  and  catches  the  city  chimes  hushed  and  far 
away,  so  lingered  and  listened  the  Howadji  along  the  verge 
of  dreaming.  Has  the  ear  mirages,  mused  he,  like  the 
eye? 

He  remembered  the  day,  and  it  was  Sunday — Sunday 
morning  across  the  sea.  Still  the  clanging  confusion, 
hushed  into  melody,  rang  on.  He  heard  the  orthodox  sono 
rousness  of  St.  John's,  the  sweet  solemnity  of  St.  Paul's,  then 
the  petulant  peal  of  the  dissenting  bells  dashed  in.  But 
all  so  sweet  and  far,  until  the  belfry  of  the  old  Brick  bel 
lowed  with  joy,  as  if  the  head  of  giant  Despair  were  now 
finally  broken.  Had  Nilus  wreathed  these  brows  with 
magic  lotus  ? 

Now,  mused  the  Howadji,  haply  dreaming  still,  now 
contrite  Gotham,  in  its  Sunday  suit  of  sackcloth  and  ashes, 
hies  humbly  forth  to  repentance  and  prayer.  Perchance 
some  maiden  tarries  that  her  hair  may  be  fitly  folded,  that 


142  NILE   NOTES 


she  may  wait  upon  the  Lord  en  grande  tenue.  In  godly 
Grotham  such  things  have  been.  Divers  of  its  daughters 
once  tarried  from  the  service  and  sermon  that  a  French 
barber  might  lay  his  hand  upon  their  heads,  before  the 
bishop.  Then,  like  coiffed  cherubim,  they  stole  sweetly 
up  the  church-aisle,  well  named  of  grace,  if  its  Grod  must 
abide  such  worship,  and  were  confirmed— in  what?  de 
manded  the  now  clearly  dreaming  Howadji. 

Belfry  of  old  Brick,  clang,  not  so  proudly  !  Haply  the 
head  of  the  giant  Despair  is  only  cracked,  not  yet  broken. 

Still  trembled  the  melodious  murmur  of  bells  through 
the  air,  sweet  as  if  the  bells  rang  of  the  shining  city,  to 
Christian  lingering  on  the  shore.  It  was  the  marvel  of 
many  marvels  of  travel.  The  dawn  opened  dim  eyes  at 
length,  still  dreaming  of  that  sound,  when  the  golden- 
sleeved  Commander  opened  the  blue  door  of  the  cabin,  and 
the  Howadji  then  heard  the  mingled  moaning  of  many 
Sakias,  but  the  sweet,  far  bells  no  more. 


XXII. 

. 

tjrt 


"A  motion  from  the  river  won, 
Ridged  the  smooth  level,  bearing  on 
My  shallop  through  the  star-strown  calm, 
Until  another  night  in  night 
I  entered,  from  the  clearer  light, 
Imbowered  vaults  of  pillar'd  Palm." 

•      ^'.      ,'  .      V.-.  ^      «.^.  '  __l          l    iJ,      *          *.'.\'|     »      ' 

HUMBOLDT,  the  only  cosmopolitan  and  a  poet,  divides 
the  earth  by  beauties,  and  celebrates  as  dearest  to  him, 
and  first  fascinating  him  to  travel,  the  climate  of  palms. 
The  palm  is  the  type  of  the  tropics,  and  when  the  great 
Alexander  marched  triumphing  through  India,  some  Hin 
doo,  suspecting  the  sweetest  secret  of  Brama,  distilled  a 
wine  from  the  palrn,  the  glorious  fantasy  of  whose  intoxi 
cation  no  poet  records. 

I  knew  a  palm-tree  upon  Capri.  It  stood  in  select  so 
ciety  of  shining  fig-leaves  and  lustrous  oleanders  ;  it  over 
hung  the  balcony,  and  so  looked,  far  overleaning,  down 
upon  the  blue  Mediterranean.  Through  the  dream-mists  of 
southern  Italian  noons,  it  looked  up  the  broad  bay  of  Na 
ples  and  saw  vague  Vesuvius  melting  away  ;  or  at  sunset 
the  isles  of  the  Syrens,  whereon  they  singing  sat,  and 
wooed  Ulysses  as  he  went  ;  or  in  the  full  May  moonlight 


U4  NILE    NOTES. 


the  oranges  of  Sorrento  shone  across  it,  great  and  golden, 
permanent  planets  of  that  delicious  dark.  And  from  the 
Sorrento  where  Tasso  was  born,  it  looked  across  to  pleas 
ant  Posylippo,  where  Virgil  is  buried,  and  to  stately 
Ischia.  The  palm  of  Capri  saw  all  that  was  fairest  and 
most  famous  in  the  bay  of  Naples. 

A  wandering  poet,  whom  I  knew — sang  a  sweet  song 
to  the  palm,  as  he  dreamed  in  the  moonlight  upon  that 
balcony.  But  it  was  only  the  free-masonry  of  sympathy. 
It  was  only  syllabled  moonshine.  For  the  palm  was  a 
poet  too,  and  all  palms  are  poets. 

Yet  when  I  asked  the  bard  what  the  palm-tree  sang 
in  its  melancholy  measures  of  waving,  he  told  me  that  not 
Vesuvius,  nor  the  Syrens,  nor  Sorrento,  nor  Tasso,  nor  Vir 
gil,  the  stately  Ischia  nor  all  the  broad  blue  beauty  of 
Naples  bay,  was  the  theme  of  that  singing.  But  partly  it 
sang  of  a  river  forever  flowing,  and  of  cloudless  skies,  and 
green  fields  that  never  faded,  and  the  mournful  music  of . 
water-wheels,  and  the  wild  monotony  of  a  tropical  life — 
and  partly  of  the  yellow  silence  of  the  Desert,  and  of  drear 
solitudes  inaccessible,  and  of  wandering  caravans,  and 
lonely  men.  Then  of  gardens  overhanging  rivers,  that 
roll  gorgeous-shored  through  Western  fancies — of  gardens 
in  Bagdad  watered  by  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris, 
whereof  it  was  the  fringe  and  darling  ornament — of  oases 
in  those  sere  sad  deserts  where  it  overfountained  fountains, 
and  every  leaf  was  blessed.  More  than  all,  of  the  great 
Orient  universally,  where  no  tree  was  so  abundant,  so 
loved  and  so  beautiful. 


UNDER    THE    PALMS,  145 

•    -  -    ^  -         -  -    .  '  '        

When  I  lay  under  that  palm-tree  in  Capri  in  the  May 
moonlight,  my  ears  were  opened,  and  I  heard  all  that  .the 
poet  had  told  me  of  its  song. 

Perhaps  it  was  because  I  came  from  Rome,  where  the 
holy  week  comes  into  the  year  as  Christ  entered  Jerusalem, 
over  palms.  For  in  the  magnificence  of  St.  Peter's,  all 
the  pomp  of  the  most  pompous  of  human  institutions  is  on 
one  day  charactered  by  the  palm.  The  Pope  borne  upon 
his  throne,  as  is  no  other  monarch, — with  wide-waving 
Flabella  attendant,  moves,  blessing  the  crowd  through 
the  great  nave.  All  the  red-legged  cardinals  follow,  each 
of  whose  dresses  would  build  a  chapel,  so  costly  are  they, 
and  the  crimson-crowned  G-reek  patriarch  with  long  silken 
black  beard,  and  the  crew  of  motley  which  the  Roman 
clergy  is,  crowded  after  in  shining  splendor. 

No  ceremony  of  imperial  Rome  had  been  more  impos 
ing,  and  never  witnessed  in  a  temple  more  imperial.  But 
pope,  patriarch,  cardinals,  bishops,  ambassadors,  and  all 
the  lesser  glories,  bore  palm  branches  in  their  hands.  Not 
veritable  palm  branches,  but  their  imitation  in  turned 
yellow  wood ;  and  all  through  Rome  that  day,  the  palm 
branch  was  waving  and  hanging.  Who  could  not  see  its 
beauty,  even  in  the  turned  yellow  wood?  Who  did  not 
feel  it  was  a  sacred  tree  as  well  as  romantic  ? 

For  palm  branches  were  strewn  before  Jesus  as  he 
rode  into  Jerusalem,  and  forever,  since,  the  palm  symbol 
izes  peace.  Wherever  a  grove  of  palms  waves  in  the  low 
moonlight  or  starlight  wimj,  it  is  the  celestial  choir 
chanting  peace  on  earth,  good- will  to  men.  There  foro 

G 


146  NILE   NOTES. 


is  it  the  foliage  of  the  old  religious  pictures.  Mary  sits 
under  a  palm,  and  the  saints  converse  under  palms,  and 
the  prophets  prophesy  in  their  shade,  and  cherubs  float 
with  palms  over  the  Martyr's  agony.  Nor  among  pictures 
is  there  any  more  beautiful  than  Correggio's  Flight  into 
Egypt,  wherein  the  golden-haired  angels  put  aside  the 
palm  branches,  and  smile  sunnily  through,  upon  the  lovely 
Mother  and  the  lovely  child. 

The  palm  is  the  chief  tree  in  religious  remembrance 
and  religious  art.  It  is  the  chief  tree  in  romance  and 
poetry.  But  its  sentiment  is  always  Eastern,  and  it 
always  yearns  for  the  East.  In  the  "West  it  is  an  exile, 
and  pines  in  the  most  sheltered  gardens.  Among  Western 
growths  in  the  Western  air,  it  is  as  unsphered  as  Hafiz  in 
a  temperance  society.  Yet  of  all  Western  shores  it  is 
happiest  in  Sicily,  for  Sicily  is  only  a  bit  of  Africa  drifted 
westward.  There  is  a  soft  Southern  strain  in  the  Sicilian 
skies,  and  the  palms  drink  its  sunshine  like  dew.  Upon 
the  tropical  plain  behind  Palermo,  among  the  sun-suck 
ing  aloes,  and  the  thick,  shapeless  cactuses,  like  elephants 
and  rhinoceroses  enchanted  into  foliage,  it  grows  ever 
gladly.  For  the  aloe  is  of  the  East,  and  the  prickly  pear, 
and  upon  that  plain  the  Saracens  have  been,  and  the  palm 
sees  the  Arabian  arch,  and  the  oriental  sign-manual 
stamped  upon  the  land. 

In  the  Villa  Serra  di  Falco,  within  sound  of  the  vespers 
of  Palermo,  there  is  a  palm  beautiful  to  behold.  It  is  like 
a  G-eorgian  slave  in  a  Pacha's  hareem.  Softly  shielded 
from  eager  winds,  gently  throned  upon  a  slope  of  richest 


.'UNDER    THE    PALMS.  147 

green,  fringed  with  brilliant  and  fragrant  flowers,  it  stands 
separate  and  peculiar  in  the  odorous  garden  air.  Yet  it 
droops  and  saddens,  and  bears  no  fruit.  Vain  is  the  ex 
quisite  environment  of  foreign  fancies.  The  poor  slave 
has  no  choice  but  life.  Care  too  tender  will  not  suffer  it 
to  die.  Pride  and  admiration  surround  it  with  the  best 
beauties,  and  feed  it  upon  the  warmest  sun.  But  I  heard 
it  sigh,  as  I  passed.  A  wind  blew  warm  from  the  East, 
and  it  lifted  its  arms  hopelessly,  and  when  the  wind,  love- 
laden  with  most  subtle  sweetness,  lingered,  loth  to  fly,  the 
palm  stood  motionless  upon  its  little  green  mound,  and  the 
flowers  were  so  fresh  and  fair- — and  the  leaves  of  the  trees 
so  deeply  hued,  and  the  native  fruit  so  golden  and  glad 
upon  the  boughs^-that  the  still  warm  garden  air,  seemed 
only  the  silent,  voluptuous  sadness  of  the  tree  ;  and  had  I 
been  a  poet  my  heart  would  have  melted  in  song  for  the 
proud,  pining  palm. 

But  the  palms  are  not  only  poets  in  the  West,  they  are 
prophets  as  well.  They  are  like  heralds  sent  forth  upon 
the  farthest  points  to  celebrate  to  the  traveler  the  glories 
they  foreshow.  Like  spring  birds  they  sing  a  summer  un 
fading,  and  climes  where  Time  wears  the  year  as  a  queen 
a  rosary  of  diamonds.  The  mariner,  eastward-sailing, 
hears  tidings  from  the  chance  palms  that  hang  along  the 
southern  Italian  shore.  They  call  out  to  him  across  f  the 
gleaming  calm  of  a  Mediterranean  noon,  "  Thou  happy 
mariner,  our  souls  sail  with  thee." 

The  first  palm  undoes  the  "West.  The  Queen  of  Sheba 
and  the  Princess  Shemselnihar  look  then  upon  the  most 


148  NILE    NOTES. 


Solomon  of  Howadji's.  So  far  the  Orient  has  come — not 
in  great  glory,  not  handsomely,  but  as  Rome  came  to 
Britain  in  Roman  soldiers.  The  crown  of  imperial  glory 
glittered  yet  and  only  upon  the  seven  hills,  but  a  single  ray 
had  penetrated  the  northern  night — and  what  the  golden 
house  of  Nero' was  to  a  Briton  contemplating  a  Roman  sol 
dier,  is  the  East  to  the  Howadji  first  beholding  a  palm. 

At  Alexandria  you  are  among  them.  Do  not  decry 
Alexandria  as  all  Howadji  do.  To  my  eyes  it  was  the  il 
luminated  initial  of  the  oriental  chapter.  Certainly  it  reads 
like  its  heading—camels,  mosques,  bazaars,  turbans,  baths 
and.  chibouques:  and  the  whole  East  rows  out  to  you, 
in  the  turbaned  and  fluttering-robed  rascal  who  officiates 
as  your  pilot  and  moors  you  in  the  shadow  of  palms  under 
the  Pacha's  garden.  Malign  Alexandria  no  more,  although 
you  do  have  your  choice  of  camels  or  omnibuses  to  go  to 
your  hotel,  for  when  you  are  there  and  trying  to  dine,  the 
wild-eyed  Bedoueen  who  serves  you,  will  send  you  deep 
into  the  desert  by  his  masquerading  costume  and  his  eager, 
restless  eye,  looking  as  if  he  would  momently  spring 
through  the  window,  and  plunge  into  the  desert  depths. 
These  Bedoueen  or  Arab  servants  are  like  steeds  of  the  sun 
for  carriage  horses.  They  fly,  girt  with  wild  fascination, 
for  what  will  they  do  next  ? 

As  you  donkey  out  of  Alexandria  to  Pompey's  Pillar, 
you  will  pass  a  beautiful  garden  of  palms,  and  by  sunset 
nothing  is  so  natural  as  to  see  only  those  trees.  Yet  the 
fascination  is  lasting.  The  poetry  of  the  first  exiles  you 
saw,  does  not  perish  in  the  presence  of  the  nation,  for 


UNDER  THE  PALMS.  149 

those  exiles  stood  beckoning  like  angels  at  the  gate  of  Par 
adise,  sorrowfully  ushering  you  into  the  glory  whence 
themselves  were  outcasts  forever  : — and  as  you  curiously 
looked  in  passing,  you  could  not  believe  that  their  song  was 
truth,  and  that  the  many  would  be  as  beautiful  as  the  one. 

Thenceforward,  in  the  land,  of  Egypt,  palms  are  per 
petual.  They  are  the  only  foliage  of  the  Nile,  for  we  will 
not  harm  the  modesty  of  a  few  Mimosas  and  Sycamores  by 
foolish  claims.  They  are  the  shade  of  the  mud  villages, 
marking  their  site  in  the  landscape,  so  that  the  groups  of 
palms  are  the  number  of  villages.  They  fringe  the  shore 
and  the  horizon.  The  sun  sets  golden  behind  them,  and 
birds  sit  swinging  upon  their  boughs  and  float  glorious 
among  their  trunks ;  on  the  ground  beneath  are  flowers ; 
the  sugar-cane  is  not  harmed  by  the  ghostly  shade  nor  the 
tobacco,  and  the  yellow  flowers  of  the  cotton-plant  star  its 
dusk  at  evening.  The  children  play  under  them,  the  old 
men  crone  and  smoke,  the  donkeys  graze,  the  surly  bison 
and  the  conceited  camels  repose.  The  old  Bible  pictures 
are  ceaselessly  painted,  but  with  softer,  clearer  colors  than 
in  the  venerable  book. 

The  palm-grove  is  always  enchanted.  If  it  stretch  in 
land  too  alluringly,  and  you  run  ashore  to  stand  under  the 
bending  boughs  to  share  the  peace  of  the  doves  swinging  in 
the  golden  twilight,  and  to  make  yourself  feel  more  scrip- 
turally,  at  least  to  surround  yourself  with  sacred  emblems, 
having  small  other  hope  of  a  share  in  the  beauty  of  holi 
ness — yet  you  will  never  reach  the  grove.  You  will  gain 
the  trees,  but  it  is  not  the  grove  you  fancied — that  golden 


150  NILE    NOTES. 


gloom  will  never  be  gained — it  is  an  endless  El  Dorado 
gleaming  .along  these  shores.  The  separate  columnar 
trunks  ray  out  in  foliage  above,  but  there  is  no  shade  of  a 
grove,  no  privacy  of  a  wood,  except,  indeed,  at  sunset, 

"  A  privacy  of  glorious  light." 

Each  single  tree  has  so  little  shade  that  the  mass  stand 
ing  at  wide  ease  can  never  create  the  shady  solitude, 
without  which,  there  is  no  grove. 

But  the  eye  never  wearies  of  palms  more  than  the  ear 
of  singing  birds.  Solitary  they  stand  upon  the  sand,  or 
upon  the  level,  fertile  land  in  groups,  with  a  grace  and 
dignity  that  no  tree  surpasses.  Very  soon  the  eye  beholds 
in  their  forms  the  original  type  of  the  columns  which  it 
will  afterward  admire  in  the  temples.  Almost  the  first 
palm  is  architecturally  suggestive,  even  in  those  Western 
gardens — but  to  artists  living  among  them  and  seeing  only 
them  !  Men's  hands  are  not  delicate  in  the  early  ages,  and 
the  fountain  fairness  of  the  palms  is  not  very  flowingly 
fashioned  in  the  capitals,  but  in  the  flowery  perfection  of 
the  Parthenon  the  palm  triumphs.  The  forms  of  those 
columns  came  from  Egypt,  and  that  which  was  the  sus 
picion  of  the  earlier  workers,  was  the  success  of  more  deli 
cate  designing.  So  is  the  palm  in  wound  with  our  art  and 
poetry  and  religion,  and  of  all  trees  would  the  Howadji  be  a 
palm,  wide- waving  peace  and  plenty,  and  feeling  his  kin 
to  the  Parthenon  and  Raphael's  pictures. 

But  nature  is  absolute  taste,  and  has  no  pure  orria- 


UNDER    THE    PALMS.  151 

merit,  so  that  the  palm  is  no  less  useful  than  beautiful. 
The  family  is  infinite  arid  ill  understood.  The  cocoa-nut, 
date  and  .sago,  are  all  palms.  Ropes  and  sponges  are 
wrought  of  the  tough  interior  fiber.  The  various  fruits  are 
nutritious,  the  wood,  the  roots  and  the  leaves  are  all  con 
sumed.  It  is  one  of  nature's  great  gifts  to  her  spoiled,  sun- 
darlings.  Whoso  is  born  of  the  sun  is  made  free  of  the 
world.  Like  the  poet  Thomson,  he  may  put  his  hands  in 
his  pockets  and  eat  apples  at  leisure. 

I  do  not  find  that  the  Egyptians  ever  deified  the  palm, 
as  some  of  them  did  the  crocodile.  And  therein  I  find  a 
want  of  that  singular  shrewdness  of  perception  which  the 
Poet  Martineau  perpetually  praises  in  that  antique  people. 
It  was  a  miserably  cowardly  thing  to  make  a  Grod  of  a 
Dragon,  who  dined  and  supped  upon  you  and  your  friends 
whenever  he  could  catch  you  ;  who  did  nothing  but  stretch 
his  scales  upon  the  sand  in  the  sun ;  and  left  only  suspi 
cious  musk-balls  as  a  legacy  to  his  worshipers.  To  deify 
that  mole-eyed  monster,  and  then  carefully  embalm  the 
dead  abomination,  looked  very  like  fear,  spite  of  Thothmes, 
Psamitticus,  and  Ramses  the  Great.  For  meanwhile,  the 
land  entertained  angels  unawares.  They  were  waving 
gracious  wings  over  the  green  fields,  and  from  the  womb 
of  plenty  dropped  the  sweet  nutritious  dates,  and  from  the 
plumage  of  those  wings  were  houses  thatched.  And  every 
part  of  the  beautiful  body,  living  or  dead,  was  a  treasure 
to  the  mole-eyed  Crocodile-worshipers.  The  land  was 
covered  with  little  Grods,  whispering  peace  and  plenty,  but 
they  were  no  more  deified  than  the  sweet  stray  thoughts 


152  NILE    NOTES. 


of  the  villagers.  Indeed,  Poet  Harriet,  your  erudite  Egyp 
tians  went  out  of  their  way  to  worship  devils. 

They  do  better  even  to  this  day,  higher  up  the  river. 
Along  the  remote  shores  of  the  white  Nile,  are  races  wild 
and  gentle,  who  extract  the  four  lower  front  teeth  for 
beauty,  and  worship  the  great  trees.  And  truly,  in  the 
Tropics,  the  great  tree  is  a  great  Grod.  Far  outspreading 
shielding  arms,  he  folds  his  worshipers  from  the  burning 
sun,  and  wrestles  wondrously  with  the  wildest  gales. 
Birds  build  in  the  sweet  security  of  his  shade.  Fruit  ri 
pens  and  falls  untended  from  his  beneficent  boughs.  At 
midnight  the  winds  converse  with  him,  and  he  hides  the 
stars.  He  outlives  generations,  and  is  a  cherished  tra 
dition. 

There  is  a  Godlike  G-od !  A  great  tree  could  proselyte 
even  among  Christians.  The  Boston  elm  has  moved 
hearts  that  Park-street  and  Brattle-street  have  never  in- 
tenerated.  There  is  a  serious,  sensible  worship !  The 
Grod  hath  duration,  doth  nothing  harm,  and  imparts  very 
tangible  blessings.  The  Egyptian  worship  of  the  croco 
dile  is  very  thin,  measured  by  this  Dinka  religion  of  the 
tree.  And  is  the  crocodile's  a  loftier  degree  of  life  than 
the  tree's? 

It  is  the  date-palm  which  is  so  common  and  graceful 
in  Egypt.  Near  Asyoot,  the  ascending  Howadji  sees  for 
the  .first  time  the  Dom  palm.  This  is  a  heavier,  huskier 
tree,  always  forked.  It  has  a  very  tropical  air,  and  solves 
the  mystery  of  gingerbread  nuts.  For  if  the  hard,  brown 
fruit  of  the  Dom  be  not  the  hard,  brown  nuts  which  our 


UNDER    THE    PALMS.  '153V 

credulous  youth  ascribed  to  the  genius  of  the  baker  at  the 
corner,  they  are  certainly  tne  type  of  those  gingered  blisses, 
and  never  did  the  Howadji  seem  to  himself  more  hopelessly 
lost  in  the  magic  of  Egypt  and  the  Kasfy  than  when,  he 
plucked  gingerbread  from  a  palm-tree.  -{- 

The  Dom  is  coarse  by  the  side  of  the  feathery  date- 
palm,  like  a  clumsy  brake  among  maiden  hair  ferns.  It 
is  tropically  handsome,  but  is  always  the  plebeian  palm. 
It  has  clumsy  hands  and  feet,  and,  like  a  frowsy  cook, 
gawks  in  the  land.  But,  plumed  as  a  prince  and  graceful 
as  a  gentleman,  stands  the  date,  and  whoever  travels 
among  palms,  travels  in  good  society.  Southward  stretch 
es  the  Ibis,  and  morning  and  evening  sees  few  other  trees. 
They  sculpture  themselves  upon  memory  more  fairly  than 
upon  these  old  columns.  The  wave  of  their  boughs  hence 
forward,  wherever  you  are,  will  be  the  wave  of  the -magi 
cian's  wand,  and  you  will  float  again  upon  the  Nile,  and 
wonder  how  were  shaped  the  palms  upon  the  shore  when 
Adam  sailed  with  Eve  down  the  rivers  of  Eden. 

G* 


xxm 

!    dD  $  Imp  Imp  n, 

THERE  are  but  two  sounds  in  Egypt,  the  sigh  of  the 
Sakia  and  the  national  cry  of  "Bucksheesh,  Howadji" — 
Alms,  0  Shopkeeper !  Add  the  ceaseless  bark  of  curs,  if 
you  are  Trinitarian,  and  you  will  find  your  mystic  number 
everywhere  made  good. 

"  Bucksheesh  Howadji,"  is  the  universal  greeting. 
From  all  the  fields,  as  you  stroll  along  the  shore  or  sail  up 
the  river,  swells  this  vast  shout.  Young  and  old  and  both 
sexes,  in  every  variety  of  shriek,  whine,  entreaty,  demand, 
contempt,  and  indifference,  weary  the  Howadji' s  soul  with 
the  incessant  cry.  Little  children  who  can  not  yet  talk, 
struggle  to  articulate  it.  Father  and  mother  shout  it  in 
full  chorus.  The  boys  on  the  tongues  of  Sakias,  the  ebony 
statues  at  the  Shadoofs,  the  specters  in  the  yellow-blos 
somed  cotton-field,  or  standing  among  the  grain,  break 
their  long  silence  with  this  cry  only,  "Alms,  0  Shop 
keeper." 

It  is  not  always  a  request.  £firls  and  boys  laugh  as 
they  sfyout  it,  nor  cease  picking  cotton  or  cutting  stalks. 
Groups  of  children  with  outstretched  hands,  surround  you 


ALMS!     0   SHOPKEEPER.  155 

in  full  chorus,  if  you  pause  to  sketch  or  shoot  or  loiter. 
They  parry  your  glances  with  the  begging.  Have  the 
sleepy-souled  Egyptians  learned  that  if  Howadji  have  evil 
eyes,  there  is  no  surer  spell  to  make  them  disappear  than 
an  appeal  to  their  pockets?  Like  a  prayer,  the  whole 
land  repeats  the  invocation,  and^with  the  usual  amount  of 
piety  and  the  pious. 

Yet  sometimes  it  is  an  imperial  demand,  and  you  would 
fancy  Belisarius  or  Ramses  the  Great  sat  begging  upon 
the  bank.  Sauntering  in  a  golden  sunset  along  the  shore 
at  Edfoo,  a  wandering  minstrel  in  the  grass  tapped  his 
tarabuka  as  the  Howadji  passed,  that  they  should  ren 
der  tribute.  The  unnoting  Howadji  passed  on.  Thank 
less  trade  the  tax-gatherer,  thou  tarabuka  thrummer  I— 
and  he  looked  after  us  with  contempt  for  the  Christian 
dogs. 

Farther  on  a  voice  shouted,  as  if  the  Howadji  had 
passed  a  shrine  unkneeling,  "  Shopkeepers !  Shopkeep 
ers  !"  But  dignity  is  deaf,  and  they  sauntered  on.  Then 
more  curtly  and  angrily,  "  Shopkeepers  !  Shopkeepers  !" — 
as  if  a  man  had  discovered  false  weight  in  his  wares.  And 
constantly  nearing,  the  howl  of  Howadji  grew  intolerable, 
until  there  was  a  violent  clapping  of  hands,  and  a  blear- 
eyed  Egyptian  ran  in  front  of  us  like  a  ragingly  mad  em 
peror,  "  Alms !  0  Shopkeeper !"  "  To  the  devil,  0  Egyp 
tian  !" 

For  no  shopkeeper  on  record  ever  gave  alms  except  to 
the  .miserable,  deformed,  old,  and  blind.  They  are  the 
only  distinctions  you  can  make  or  maintain  in  an  other- 


15G 


NILE    NOTES. 


wise  monotonous  mass  of  misery.  Nation  of  beggars, 
effortless,  effete,  bucksheesh  is  its  prominent  point  of 
contact  with  the  Howadji,  who,  revisiting  the  Nile  in 
dreams,  hears  far-sounding  and  forever,  "  Alms,  0  Shop 
keeper." 


-r ,, 


•h  **. 

•4&S* 


XXIV. 


"  Some  from  farthest  South— 
Syene,  and  where  the  shadow  both  way  falls, 
Meroe,  Nilotick  isle." 

APPROACHING  Assouan,  or  the  Greek  Syene,  which  we 
will  henceforth  call  it,  as  more  graceful  and  musical,  the 
high  bluffs  with  bold  masses  of  rock  heralded  a  new 
scenery  —  and  its  sharp  lofty  forms  were  like  the  pealing 
trumpet  tones,  announcing  the  crisis  of  the  struggle.  It 
was  a  pleasant  January  morning,  that  the  Ibis  skimmed 
along  the  shore.  The  scenery  was  bolder  than  any  she  had 
seen  in  her  flight.  Rocks  broke  the  evenness  of  the  river's 
surface,  and  in  the  heart  of  the  hills  the  river  seemed 
to  end,  it  was  so  shut  in  by  the  rocky  cliffs  and  points. 

The  town  Syene  is  a  dull  mud  mass,  like  all  other 
Egyptian  towns.  But  palms  spread  luxuriantly  along  the 
bank,  and  on  the  shores  of  Elephantine,  the  island  oppo 
site—sweeps  and  slopes  of  greenery  stretched  westward 
from  the  eye. 

Upon  that   shore  the   eye   lingers   curiously  upon   the 
remains   of   a   Christian   convent,    where   there   are   yet 


158  NILE    NOTES. 


grottoes,  formerly  used  as  chapels  and  shrines,  and  still  as 
you  look  and  linger,  the  forms  and  faces  of  Christian  lands 
begin  to  rise,  and  reel  before  your  fancy,  and  you  half 
fear,  while  you  are  fascinated,  that  the  East  will  fade  in 
that  "Western  remembrance,  until  some  Arab  beldame — 
brown  and  unhuman  as  a  mummy  from  the  hills,  and 
fateful  as  Atropos,  peers  into  your  dreaming  eyes,  and 
tells  you  that  on  that  site,  an  old  King  of  the  land  buried 
incredible  treasure,  before  he  went  to  war  against  the 
Nubians.  The  miserly  monarch  left  nothing  for  his  family 
or  friends,  and  all  was  committed  to  the  charge  of  an 
austere  Magician.  Years  passed,  and  the  King  came  no 
more.  The  relatives  sought  to  obtain  the  treasure,  and 
foiling  the  Magician  slew  him  upon  the  shore.  But  dying, 
he  lived  more  terribly — for  he  rose  a  huge  serpent,  that 
devoured  all  his  assailants.  Years  pass,  and  the  King 
comes  no  more.  Yet  the  serpent  still  watches  the  treasure, 
and  once  every  midnight,  at  the  culmination  of  certain 
stars,  he  descends  to  the  Nile  to  drink,  while  so  wonder 
ful  a  light  streams  from  his  awful  head— that  if  the  King 
comes  not,  it  is  not  because  he  can  not  see  the  way.  "Were 
the  Aurora  in  the  East,  the  Howadji  would  suspect  the 
secret,  and  when  it  shone  no  more,  know  that  the  King 
had  returned  to  Syene. 

It  is  the  city  of  the  cataract.  Built  at  the  entrance 
of  the  rapids,  it  is  the  chief  point  for  the  Nubian-bound 
voyager,  and  is  the  borne  of  most  Nile  travelers.  The 
Ibis  had  flown  hither  from  Cairo  in  twenty-two  days — a 
flight  well  flown,  for  we  had  met  melancholy  Howadji, 


SYENE.  *  159 


who  had  been  fifty  days  from  Alexandria.  And  the  Ancient 
Mariner  of  the  Nile — will  he  ever  behold  Syene,  or  see  it 
only  a  palm-fringed  mirage  upon  the  shore,  as  he  dashes 
up  and  down  the  cataract  ?  But  do  not  turn  there,  re 
flective  reader,  when  you  ascend  the  Mle.  Believe  no 
Verde  Giovanes  who  give  breakfasts  on  Philse,  and  decry 
Nubia.  Push  on,  farther  and  faster — as  if  you  must  ride 
the  equator  before  you  pause-^as  if  you  could  not  sink 
deep  enough  in  the  strangeness  and  sweetness  of  tropical 
travel.  Believe  an  impartial  Howadji  who  has  no  Cangie 
or  other  boats  to  let  at  Mahratta,  that  Nubia  is  a  very 
different  land  from  Egypt,  and  that  you  have  not.  pene 
trated  antiquest  Egypt,  until  you  have  been  awe-stricken 
by  the  silence  which  was  buried  ages  ago  in  Aboo  Simbel, 
and  by  the  hand-folded  Osiride  figures,  that  people,  like 
dumb  and  dead  Gfods,  that  dim,  demonic  hall. 

The  beach  of  Syene  was  busy.  Small  craft  were  load 
ing,  and  swarms  of  naked  boys  were  driving  little  donkeys 
laden  with  sacks  of  dates,  gum-arabic,  tamarinds  and 
other  burdens,  from  Sennaar,  and  the  tropical  interior, 
pleasant  to  the  imagination  as  to  the  taste.  Huge  camels 
loomed  in  the  background,  sniffing  serenely,  and  growling 
and  grumbling,  as  they  were  forced  to  kneel,  and  pon 
derous  loads  were  heaped  upon  their  backs.  Shattered 
hulks  of  Dahabieh  and  Cangie  lay,  bare-ribbed  carcasses, 
upon  the  sand,  and  deformed  and  blear-eyed  wrecks  of 
men  and  women  crept,  worm-like,  in  and  out  of  them. 
Men  and  women,  too,  in  coarse  blankets,  or  Mrs.  Bull's 
blue  night-gowns,  brought  all  kinds  of  savage  spears,  and 


160  NILE    NOTES. 


clubs,  and  ostrich,  eggs,  and  gay  baskets,  and  clustered 
duskily  on  the  shore  opposite  the  boat,  and  waited  silently 
and  passionlessly  until  they  could  catch  the  eye  of  the 
Howadji — then  as  silently  elevated  their  wares  with  one 
hand,  and  with  the  other  held  up  indicative  fingers  of  the 
price.  Unless  trade  more  active  goes  on  with  other  Da- 
habieh  than  with  the  Ibis,  the  Howadji  suspects  the  blan 
keted  and  night-gowned  Syenites  do  not  live  solely  by 
such  barter.  Behind  this  activity,  unwonted  and  unseen 
hitherto,  a  grove  of  thick  palms  broad-belted  the  beach— 
over  which  in  a  blue  sky  burned  the  noonday  sun. 

The  Howadji  landed,  nevertheless,  and  rode  through 
the  town  on  donkeys.  Dry  dust  under  foot,  yellow,  ratty- 
looking  dogs  barking  from  the  mud-caked  roofs,  women 
unutterable,  happily  hiding  their  faces,  men  blanketed  or 
naked,  idly  staring,  sore-eyed  children  beseeching  buck- 
sheesh,  woeless  want  everywhere,  was  the  sum  of  sight 
in  Syene.  Thither,  in  times  past,  Juvenal  was  banished, 
and,  dungeoned  in  Africa,  had  leisure  to  repent  his  satire 
and  remember  Rome.  For  the  Romans  reared  a  city  here, 
and  Sir  Gardiner  found  remains  some  years  since.  But  it 
was  hard  to  believe  that  any  spot  could  so  utterly  decay, 
upon  which  Rome  had  once  set  its  seal.  To  a  tourist  from 
the  lost  Pleiad,  there  would  have  been  very  little  differ 
ence  between  the  brown  mummies  who  stood  silent  among 
the  huts  of  Syene  and  the  yellow  ratty  curs  that  barked 
peevishly,  as  our  donkeys  trotted  along.  Brutes  can  never 
sink  beneath  a  certain  level.  But  there  is  no  certain  level 
of  degradation  beneath  which  men  may  not  fall.  The  ex- 


SYENE.  161 

istence  of  the  Syenites  is  as  morally  inexplicable  as  that 
of  loathsome  serpents  in  lonely  deserts.  In  these  lands 
you  seem  to  have  reached  the  outskirts  of  creation — the 
sink  of  nature — and  almost  suspect  that  its  genius  is  too 
indolent  ever  to  be  entirely  organized.  For  all  strength 
should  be  sweet,  and  all  force  made  fair — a  fact  which  is 
clearly  forgotten  or  disproved  in  Syene. 

The  Howadji  left  the  houses,  and  were  instantly  in  the 
desert — the  wild,  howling  wilderness,  that  stretches  un- 
greened  to  the  Red  Sea.  It  was  not  a  plain  of  sand,  but 
a  huge  hilliness  of  rock  arid  sand  commingled.  There 
was  none  of  the  grandeur  of  the  sand-sea,  for  there  was  no 
outlet  for  the  eye  to  the  horizon.  It  was  like  that  craggy, 
desolate,  diamond-strewn  valley,  into  which  Sinbad  was 
carried  by  the  Roc;  All  around  us  there  was  much  glit 
tering,  but  I  saw  few  gems.  One  solitary  man  was  water 
ing  with  a  Shadoof  a  solitary  inclosure  of  sand.  A  few 
spare  blades  of  grass,  like  the  hairs  on  a  bald  head,  were 
visible  here  and  there,  but  nothing  to  reward  such  toil.  It 
faintly  greened  the  sand,  that  small  inclosure,  but  the  man 
at  his  hopeless  labor  was  a  fitting  figure  for  the  landscape. 

Among  the  tombs,  grouped  together  in  the  desert,  the 
Howadji  seemed  hundreds  of  miles  from  men.  There  is 
nothing  so  dreary  as  an  Egyptian  burial-place.  It  is 
placed  always  on  the  skirts  of  the  desert,  where  no  green 
thing  is.  Huge  scaly  domes,  like  temples  where  ghouls 
worship,  were  open  to  the  wild  winds,  and  the  stones  lay 
irregularly  scattered,  buried  in  the  sand.  It  was  Lido- 
like,  because  it  was  sand,  but  inexpressibly  sadder  than 


162  NILE   NOTES. 


those  Hebrew  graves  upon  the  Adriatic  shore,  for  here  the 
desert,  illimitable,  stole  all  hope  away. 

A  solitary  camel  passed,  phantom-like,  with  his  driver. 
Noiseless  their  tread.  No  word  was  spoken,  no  sign  made. 
The  Muslim  looked  at  us  impassibly,  as  if  we  had  been 
grotesque  carvings  upon  the  tombs.  The  low  wind  went 
pacing  deliriously  through  the  denies.  The  silent  solitude 
stifled  thought,  and  seemed  to  numb  the  soul  with  its 
deadness.  But  suddenly  palms  waved  over  us  like  hands 
of  blessing,  and,  caressing  the  shore  of  Syene,  ran  the  vic 
tor  of  the  desert,  blue-armored  from  his  cataract  triumph. 


)     ^ 


XXV. 

-  *  *       '•   .  •  '   *  .     'r  „  •  <"  '  ^ 

AT  sunset  a  cloud  of  dust. 

It  was  a  donkey  cavalcade,  descending  the  beach. 
Foremost  rode  the  Captain  of  the  Cataract,  habited  blackly, 
with  a  white  turban.  The  pilotage  through  the  cataract 
is  the  monopoly  of  a  club  of  pilots  (Mercury,  God  of  com 
merce,  forgive  the  name !)  with  some  one  of  which  the 
bargain  must  be  concluded.  They  all  try  to  cheat  each 
other,  of  course ;  and  probably  manage  the  affairs  of  the 
partnership,  by  allowing  each  member  in  turn  an  illimita 
ble  chance  of  cheating.  The  white-turbaned,  black-hab 
ited  donkestrian,  was  the  very  Reis  of  Reises^  the  sinfulest 
sinner.  ' 

Behind  him  thronged  a  motley  group,  cantering  upon 
small  donkeys.  At  length  the  spell  was  successful,  and 
the  spirits  were  coming.  Black  spirits  and  white,  blue 
spirits  and  gray,  were  mingled  and  mingling.  Long  men 
and  short,  bald  and  grisly,  capped  and  turbaned  variously, 
and  swathed  in  ungainly  garments,  that  flew  and  fluttered 
in  the  breeze  of  their  speed,  and  blent  with  the  dust  of  the 
donkeys,  made  great  commotion  in  the  golden  quiet  of  sunset. 


164  NILE   NOTES. 


The  cavalcade  was  magically  undonkeyed,  the  savages 
sprang  and  shambled,  and  tumbled  off,  while  their  beasts 
were  yet  in  full  motion,  and  were  mounting  the  plank  and 
plunging  upon  the  Ibis,  before  the  animals  had  fairly 
halted.  Then  ensued  the  greeting,  the  salaaming.  This 
is  an  exquisitely  ludicrous  ceremony  to  the  spectator.  It 
commences  with  touching  hands^  and  repeating  some  for 
mula  of  thanksgiving  and  prayer.  It  continues  by  touch 
ing  hands  and  repeating  the  formula,  which  is  by  no  means 
brief,  and  is  rattled  off  as  unconcernedly  as  Roman  priests 
rattle  off  their  morning  masses,  looking  all  around  and 
letting  the  words  run.  When  it  is  finished,  the  parties 
kiss  their  own  hands  and  separate.  Generally  having 
nothing  to  say,  they  go  apart  after  this  elaborate  greeting, 
and  separate  silently  at  last,  unless  as  usual  they  quarrel 
stoutly  before  parting. 

It  was  amusing  to  see  the  Commander  conducting  this 
ceremony  with  several.  The  point  seemed  to  be,  who 
should  have  the  last  word.  When  the  innocent  spectator 
supposed  the  How-d'ye-do  already  said,  the  actors  burst 
forth  again,  and  kept  bursting  forth  until  kissing' time.  It 
shows  the  value  of  time  to  a  people  who  are  fifteen  min 
utes  saying,  "how  are  you."  And  yet  the  Syenites  and  all 
other  Egyptians  have  the  advantage  of  us  in  some  ways. 
They  salaam  at  great  length,  and  then  having  nothing  to 
say,  are  silent.  We  salaam  very  briefly,  and  then  having 
nothing  to  say,  talk  a  great  deal.  After  all,  some  Howadji 
doubt  whether  a  Syenite  Reis,  sitting  silent  in  the  sunset 
smoking  his  pipe,  is  not  as  fair  a  figure  to  imagination  as 


THE    TREATY    OF    SYENE.  165 

Verde  Giovane,  or  all  the  Piu  Griovanes  sitting  in  white 
gloves  and  bright  boots,  and  talking  through  an  act  in  an 
opera-box. 

The  salaaming  accomplished,  the  savages  seated  them 
selves  about  the  deck.  The  Captain  of  the  Cataract,  as 
one  of  the  high  contracting  parties,  sat  next  the  cabin,  be 
fore  which  sat  the  other  party-^-the  Howadji.  The  Com 
mander  of  the  Faithful,  in  full  pontificals,  enthroned  him 
self  upon  a  chair  in  the  center  of  the  deck.  Chibouques 
were  lighted,  coffee  brought  by  the  Hadji  Hamed,  whose 
solemnity  was  npt  softened  as  on  that  Terpsichorean  night 
at  Esne,  and  zealously  puffing  and  sipping,  the  council 
commenced. 

The  Howadji  knows  no  occasion,  except  similar  diplo 
matic  assemblies,  which  could  present  a  group  of  more  im 
becile  faces.  The  want  of  pride,  of  manliness,  of  dignity, 
of  force,  of  all  that  makes  the  human  face  divine,  was 
supplied  by  an  expression  of  imbecile  cunning,  ridiculously 
transparent.  The  complexions  were  of  every  color,  from 
yellow  copper  to  Nubian  deadness  of  blackness.  It  was  as 
hateful  to  be  treating  with  such  human  caricatures,  as  it 
would  have  been  with  apes.  The  natural  savage  may  be 
noble — certainly  the  records  of  Indian  life  are  rich  in  dig 
nity,  heroism  and  manliness.  But  a  race  effete — the  last 
lees  of  what  was  a  nation,  are  not  to  be  gilded  when  they 
have  sunken  into  imbecility,  because  the  elder  inhabitants 
of  the  land  were  noble.  Howbeit  the  poet  Martineau  could 
watch  these  men  and  sing  rapturously  of  "the  savage 
faculty."  Learn  at  Syene,  0  unpoetic  Howadji.!  that  not 


166  NILE   NOTES. 


the  savage  faculty  of  a  dotard  race,  but  the  pure  provi 
dence  of  God,  takes  you  up  and  down  the  Cataract. 

The  conditions  of  the  treaty,  as  of  many  others,  were 
mostly  understood  before  the  Congress  assembled.  Prolix 
palaver  and  the  dexterous  seizing  of  chance  advantages, 
were  the  means  of  attaining  those  conditions,  and  the 
Commander  shook  out  his  golden-sleeves,  as  Metternich  his 
powdered  wig  at  Vienna,  then  crossed  his  eyes  like  the 
arbiter  of  many  fates,  and  said,  pleasantly  puffing,  in 
Arabic — 

"  You  took  up  an  English  boat  this  morning  ?" 

The  Captain  of  the  Cataract  responded  "  Taib,"  mean 
ing,  "  yes,  very  true ;"  and  the  high  contractors  smoked  sig 
nificantly. 

"  A  good  wind  for  passing  the  Cataract,"  continued  the 
Commander.  No  answer,  but  a  ceasless  puffing,  and  a 
dubious,  indifferent  shrug.  The  fact  being  so,  and  the 
passage  much  depending  upon  the  wind,  it  was  an  ad 
vantage,  say  the  five  of  trumps,  for  the  Commander,  and 
there  was  a  brief  silence.  Not  to  irritate  by  following  up 
advantages,  Golden-sleeve  suggested  mildly,  "  Quite  a 
pleasant  day,"  and  smiled  benignly  upon  the  last  rosy 
blushings  of  the  West. 

"  Quite  a  pleasant  day,"  retorted  the  Reis,  without 
showing  his  hand,  but  meditating  a  play. 

The  Captain  of  the  Cataract  raised  his  eyes  carelessly 
to  the  far  outspreading  yards  of  the  Ibis,  glanced  along  her 
deck  with  his  shrunken,  soulless  orbs,  puffed  portentously, 
then  slowly  said,  "  Your  boat  is  too  large  to  go  up  the 


THE    TREATY    OF    SYENR  167 

Cataract."     The  Knave  of  Trumps,  for  the  boat  was  very   - 
large. 

But  the  Commander  puffed,  and  the  Reis  puffed,  and 
we  all  puffed,  as  if  nothing  had  been  said.  The  motley 
cavalcade  of  the  Reis  squatted  upon  the  deck,  stared  at 
the  Howadji,  and  listened  to  the  talk,  while  they  passed  a 
nargileh  around  the  circle,  and  grunted  and  groaned  in 
tense  satisfaction  and  delight. 

"  This  boat  went  up  the  Cataract  last  year,"  com 
menced  the  Commander,  as  if  opening  up  an  entirely  new 
topic,  and  quite  ignoring  the  knave.  Silence  again,  and 
great  cloudiness  from  the  chibouques. 

"  Many  boats  pass  up  this  year  ?". 

"  Many,  and  pay  high."    The  Commander  lost  that  lift. 

Gradually  the  face  of  Grolden-sleeve  settled  into  a  semi- 
sternness  of  expression.  He  exhaled  smoke  with  the  air 
of  a  man  whose  word  was  final,  and  in  whose  propositions 
the  finger  of  fate  was  clearly  to  be  discerned,  and  whom 
to  withstand,  would  be  the  sin  against  the  Pacha.  Curious 
to  contemplate !  In  the  degree  that  the  Commander's 
face  waxed  stern,  and  his  eyes  darkened  with  decision, 
crept  a  feline  softness  of  sweetness  over  the  visage  of  the 
Reis  of  Reises,  and  his  mole  eyes  more  miserably  dwindled, 
and  the  smoke  curled  more  lightly  from  his  pipe.  His 
body  squirmed  snake-like  as  he  glanced,  sycophantically 
entreating,  at  the  Howadji.  How  clearly  the  crisis  was 
coming !  Astute  Commander  in  full  pontificals ! 

At  length  like  a  bold  lover  the  Grolden-sleeve  popped 
the  question.  Then  what  smiling,  what  snaky  sweetness, 
what  utter  inability  to  reply. 


168  NILE    NOTES 


"  Tell  him,"  said  the  Pacha,  "  that  going  or  staying  is 
quite  indifferent  to  us — " 

The  Captain  of  the  Cataract  received  the  interpretation 
like  glad  tidings,  and  smiled  as  if  it  would  solace  his  soul, 
te  embrace  the  company. 

The  question  was  popped  again — 

"Six  hundred  piasters,"  simpered,  almost  inaudibly, 
the  old  sinner. 

"  Damn  !  Six  hundred  devils,"  exclaimed  the  Comman 
der  in  English,  shoving  his  chair  back — frowning  and 
springing  up.  "  "We'll  not  go."  And  the  golden-sleeved 
cloak  became  suddenly  a  gilt-edged  cloud,  pregnant  with 
the  maddest  tempests. 

But  unconcerned  puffed  the  Captain  of  the  Cataract, 
smoking  as  serenely  as  Vesuvius  during  a  Norway  gale — 
and  unconcerned  puffed  all  the  lieutenants  and  majors  and 
under-scrubbery  of  the  cataract,  as  if  the  world  were  not 
about  to  end. 

Innocent  Howadji !  It  was  only  part  of  the  play. 
The  Commander's  face  and  manner  said  plainly  enough 
all  the  time,  "  If  you  think  I  come  hither  as  a  lion  it 
were  pity  of  my  life,"  and  presently  he  sat  down  again 
with  a  fresh  pipe,  and  another  fingan  of  mocha,  calmly  as 
any  other  actor  who  has  made  a  point,  but  will  waive  your 
approbation.  Mildly  smoking,  he  suggested  pleasantly, 

"  We  don't  pay  six  hundred  piasters." 

Smoky  silence — 

"  We  pay  about  four  hundred  and  fifty." 

Smoky  silence — 


THE    TREATY    OF    SYENE, 


"  Taib—  good,"  said  the  Captain  of  the  Cataract,  that 
being  the  preconceived  price  of  both  parties.  . 

A  general  commotion  ensued,-—  an  universal  shaking 
as  after  sermon  in  Christian  churches,  —  when  this  word 
was  said.  Followed  much  monosyllabic  discourse,  also 
grave  grunting,  and  a  little  more  salaaming  among  the 
belated  sinners.  Chibouques  were  refilled,  fingans  freely 
circulated,  and  the  resonance  of  satisfactory  smacks  clearly 
excited  the  wonder  and  envy  of  the  unfavored  pedlars 
who  still  stood  along  the  beach.  The  Reis  of  Reises 
looked  about  him  with  a  great  deal  of  expectation  and  anx 
iety,  of  which  no  notice  was  taken,  until  he  made  bold  to 
suggest  interrogatively,  "  A  little  something  else  ?"  —  >mean- 
ing  brandy,  which  the  Commander  brought,  and  of  which 
the  Reis  emptied  two  such  mighty  measures,  that  if  there 
be  virtue  in  Cognac,  he  was  undonkeyed  before  that  hour  of 
night  when  the  serpent-magician  glares  glorious  over  Syene. 

Suddenly  the  Congress  rose.  The  Reis  of  the  Cataract 
smiled  approvingly  upon  the  Howadji  as  if  they  were  very 
pretty  men,  to  be  very  prettily  done  by  a  grisly  old 
mummy  of  an  Egyptian,  then  salaamed,  kissed  his  hand 
and  stepped  ashore.  When  he  was  fairly  landed,  I  saw 
the  Commander  assisting  the  confused  crowd  of  under- 
scrubbery  out  of  the  boat,  with  his  kurbash  or  whip  of 
hippopotamus  hide.  They  all  clattered  out,  chattering 
and  fluttering  ;  and  tumbling  on  to  their  donkeys,  one  of  the 
high  contracting  parties  shambled  up  the  beach,  and  dis 
appeared  in  a  cloud  of  dust  among  the  palms 

And  the  Treaty  of  Syene  was  concluded; 
H 


XXVI 


,  THE  Ibis  went  up  the  cataract. 

In  that  pleasant,  spacious  dining-room  of  Shepherd's 
at  Cairo,  after  billiard-exhilaration  of  a  pleasant  morning, 
men  ask  each  other,  over  a  quiet  tiffin,  "  You  went  up 
the  cataract  ?"  as  if  boats  leaped  cataracts,  as  lovers  scale 
silken  ladders  to  their  ladies. 

The  Ibis,  however,  went  up  the  cataract.  Imaginative 
youth  will  needs  picture  the  Ibis  dashing  dexterously  up  a 
Nile  Niagara,  nor  deem  that  in  mystic  Egypt  is  any  thing 
impossible.  Nor  can  that  imagination  picture  scenes  more 
exciting.  Only  now  let  us  more  sedately  sail,  for  stranger 
scenery  than  this,  no  man  sees  in  long  voyaging. 

Early  on  the  morrow  of  the  Treaty,  a  mad  rabble  took 
possession  of  the  Ibis.  They  came  tumbling  and  pitching 
in,  wild  and  wan  and  grotesque  as  the  eager  ghosts  that 
file  into  Charon's  barque  when  it  touches  the  Stygian  shore. 
The  Captain  of  captains  had  gone  round  by  land  to  meet 
us  at  a  certain  point  in  the  rapid,  but  had  sent  a  substitute 
to  pilot  our  way  until  we  met  him.  The  new  rabble  ran 
around  the  deck  tumbling  over  each  other,  shouting,  chatter- 


THE    CATAR.ACT.  171 


ing,  staring  at  the  Hadji  Hamed's  kitchen  arrangements, 
and  the  peculiarities  of  the  Howadji — and  the  whole  devil's 
row  was  excited  and  stirred  up  constantly  by  a  sagacious 
superintendent  with  a  long  kurbash,  who  touched  the  re 
fractory  where  cherubs  are  intangible,  taking  good  care 
that  the  row  should  be  constantly  more  riotous,  and 
nothing  be  effected  but  his  abundant  castigation.  Our  own 
crew  were  superfluous  for  the  nonce,  and  lay  around  the 
deck  useless  as  the  Howadji.  A  bright  sun  shone— a  fair 
breeze  blew,  and  we  slipped  quietly  away  from  the  shore 
of  Syene. 

The  Ibis  rounded  a  rock,  and  all  greenness  and  placid 
palm  beauty  vanished.  We  were  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
seething  struggle  between  the  two  powers.  J^arrow  and 
swift,  and  dark  and  still,  like  a  king  flying  from  a  terrible 
triumph,  flowed  our  royal  river.  Huge  hills  of  jagged  rock 
impended.  Boulders  lay  in  the  water.  White  sand  shored 
the  stream,  stretching  sometimes  among  the  rocks  in  short 
sweeps,  whose  dazzling  white  contrasted  intensely  with  the 
black  barriers  of  rock.  High  on  a  rocky  peak  glared  a 
shekh's  white  tomb,  the  death's-head  in  that  feast  of  ter 
rible  fascination  and  delight,  and  smoothly  sheering  preci 
pices  below,  gave  Hope  no  ledge  to  grasp  in  falling,  but 
let  it  slip  and  slide  inevitably  into  the  black  gulf  beneath. 
The  wreck  of  a  Dahabieh  lay  high-lifted  upon  the  rocks  in 
the  water,  against  the  base  of  the  cliff,  its  sycamore  ribs 
white-rotting,  like  skeletons  hung  for  horror  and  warning 
around  the  entrance  of  Castle  Despair.  All  about  us  was 
rock  ponderously  piled,  and  the  few  sand  strips.  Every 


NILE    NOTES. 


instant  the  combinations  changed,  so  narrow  was  the  chan 
nel,  and  every  moment  the  scenery  was  more  savage. 

The  wind  blew  us  well,  and  the  sharp  quick  eye  of  the 
pilot  minded  well  our  course.  Sometimes  we  swept  by 
rocks  nearly  enough  to  touch  them.  Sometimes  the  doubt 
ful  Ibis  seemed  inevitably  driving  into  a  cliff,  but  bent 
away  as  she  approached,  and  ran  along  the  dark,  solemn 
surface  of  the  river.  Three  miles  of  such  sailing,  then 
the  cataract. 

It  is  a  series  of  rocky  rapids.  There  is  no  fall  of  water, 
only  a  foaming,  currenty  slope,  as  in  all  rapids.  The  cata 
ract  is  the  shock  of  the  struggle  between  the  desert  and 
the  river.  The  crisis  announced  long  since  by  the  threat 
ening  sand-heights,  has  arrived.  Through  your  dreamy 
avenue  of  palm  twilight  and  silence,  you  have  advanced 
to  no  lotus  isles,  but  to  a  fierce  and  resounding  battle — 
that  sense  of  fate  announced  it  in  the  still  sunniness  of  the 
first  mornings.  But  it  seemed  then  only  shadowy,  even 
seductive  in  awfulness,  like  death  to  young  imaginations. 
At  Syene,  this  sunny  morning,  it  has  become  a  stirring 
reality.  Pressing  in  from  Libya  and  Arabia,  the  interven 
ing  greenness  overwhelmed,  the  insatiate  rocks  and  sands 
here  grasp  the  shoulders  of  the  river,  and  hurl  their  shat 
tered  crags  into  its  bosom. 

Bleak,  irregular  mounds  and  hills  and  regularly  layered 
rock,  rise  and  slope  and  threaten  all  around.  Down  the 
steep  sides  of  the  mountains,  here  reaching  the  river,  like 
a  headlong  plunge  of  disordered  cavalry,  roll  fragments  of 
stone  of  every  size  and  shape.  Like  serried  fronts,  im- 


CATARACT.  173 


movable,  breasting  the  burden  of  the  battle,  the  black 
smooth  precipices  stand  in  the  rushing  stream.  Then  pile 
upon  pile,  fantastic,  picturesque,  strange,  but  never  sub 
lime,  like  foes  lifted  upon  foes  to  behold  the  combat,  the 
intricate  forms  of  rock  crowd  along  the  shore."?"-' 

It  is  the  desert's  enthusiastiq  descent  —  its  frenzied 
charge  of  death  or  victory.  Confusion  confounded,  deso 
lated  desolation,  never  sublime,  yet  always  solemn,  with  a 
sense  of  fate  in  the  swift-rushing  waters,  that  creates  a 
somber  interest,  not  all  unhuman,  but  akin  to  dramatic 
intensity. 

The  Nile,  long  dallying  in  placid  Nubia,  lingers  lovingly 
around  templed  Philse  —  the  very  verge  of  the  vortex.  It 
laves  the  lithe  flowers  along  its  shore,  and  folds  it  in  a 
beautiful  embrace.  It  sees  what  it  saw  there,  but  what 
it  sees  no  longer.  Is  its  calm  the  trance  of  memory  or  of 
love?  What  were  the  Ptolemies  and  their  temples  and 
their  lives  ;  what  those  of  all  their  predecessors  there,  but 
various  expressions  sweet  and  strange,  that  flushed  along 
the  face  of  the  Nile's  idol,  but  fleetly  faded  ?  It  lingers 
on  the  very  verge  of  the  vortex,  then,  unpausing,  plunges 
in.  Foamingly  furious,  it  dashes  against  the  sharp  rocks 
and  darts  beyond  them.  Scornfully  sweeping,  it  seethes 
over  ambuscades  of  jagged  stone  below.  Through  tortu 
ous  channels  here,  through  wild  ways  there,  it  leads  its 
lithe  legion  undismayed,  and  the  demon  desert  is  foiled 
forever.  r 

Then  royally  raging,  a  king  with  dark  brows  thought 
ful,  the  Nile  sweeps  solemnly  away  from  the  terrible 


NILE    NOTES. 


triumph  —  but  caresses  palm-belted  Syene  as  it  flies,  and 
calms  itself  gradually  beyond,  among  serene  green  shores. 
The  Ibis  reached  the  first  rapid.  The  swift  rush  of 
the  river  and  the  favoring  wind  held  it  a  long  time  sta 
tionary.  Had  the  wind  lulled,  she  would  have  swung 
round  suddenly  with  the  stream,  and  plunged  against  the 
rocks  that  hemmed  her  —  rocks  watching  the  Ibis  as  in 
exorably  as  desert  monsters  their  prey. 

Suddenly  a  score  of  savages  leaped  shouting  and  naked 
into  the  water,  and  buffeting  the  rapid,  reached  a  rock 
with  a  rope.  This  they  clumsily  attached  to  a  stump, 
and  the  yelling  savages  on  board  pulled  at  it  and  drew  us 
slowly  up.  Like  imps  and  demons,  the  black  sinners  clam 
bered  over  the  sharp  points  and  along  the  rocks,  shouting 
and  plunging  into  the  rapid,  to  reach  another  rock  —  at 
home  as  much  in  the  black  water  as  out  of  it  —  madly 
dancing  and  deviling  about  ;  so  that,  surveying  the  mum 
my-swathed  groups  on  deck,  and  the  hopeless  shores  and 
the  dark  devils,  the  Nile  was  the  Nile  no  longer,  but  the 
Styx,  and  the  Ibis,  Charon's  barque  of  death.  The  tumult 
was  terrible.  No  one  seemed  to  command,  and  the  super 
intendent  kept  up  a  vigorous  application  of  the  kurbash  to 
the  adjacent  shoulders,  but  without  the  slightest  practical 
influence  upon  the  voyage.  In  the  hellish  howling  of  the 
rabble,  and  sure  swiftness  and  dash  of  the  stream,  a  little 
silent  sense  had  been  heavenly.  For  the  channels  are  so 
narrow  that  it  needs  only  a  strong  rope  and  a  strong  pull 
to  insure  the  ascent.  A  few  blocks,  beams,  and  pulleys, 
ipon  points  where  a  purchase  is  necessary,  would  make 


THE    CATARACT.  175 

the  ascent  rapid  and  easy.  There  are,  at  this  point,  not 
more  than  four  or  five  rapids,  a  few  yards  wide  each  one, 
at  the  narrowest.  Between  these  hell-gates,  there  is  room 
to  sail,  if  there  be  wind  enough,  and  if  not,  the  tracking, 
with  many  men,  is  not  arduous. 

The  poet  Martineau  and  Belzoni  are  at  issue  upon  the 
"  savage  faculty."  This  mystery,  of  which  the  Howadji 
could  never  discover  the  slightest  trace,  charmed  the  poet 
Harriet  particularly  at  this  point.  Belzoni  says  of  these 
men,  that  their  utmost  sagacity  reaches  only  to  pulling  a 
rope,  or  sitting  on  the  extremity  of  a  lever  as  a  counter 
poise  ;  and  he  also,  in  a  very  unpoetic  fervor,  declares  that 
in  point  of  skill,  they  are  no  better  than  beasts.  Certainly 
it  would  be  strange  if  a  race  so  ignorant  and  clumsy  in  all 
things  else,  should  develop  fine  faculties  here.  These  de 
mons  drew  the  Ibis  up  the  rapids,  as  they  would  have 
drawn  a  wagon  up  a  hill — the  success  and  the  lo  paeans 
are  due  to  the  strength  of  the  rope.  Had  the  poet  Harriet 
ever  shot  the  Sault  Sainte  Marie  with  a  silent  Indian  in  a 
birch  shell,  she  might  have  beheld  and  chanted  the  "  sav 
age  faculty."  But  this  immense  misdirection  of  the  force 
of  an  hundred  or  more  men,  deserves  no  lyric. 

The  Ibis  was  drawn  through  two  rapids,  and  then  the 
Captain  of  the  Cataract  appeared  upon  the  shore,  mounted 
on  a  donkey  and  surrounded  by  a  staff  or  a  council  of  min 
isters,  similarly  mole-eyed  and  grisly.  I  fancied,  at  first, 
the  apparition  was  only  a  party  of  mummies  donkeying 
along  through  the  cataract,  to  visit  some  friendly  Nubian 
mummies  in  the  hills  beyond.  For  the  cataract  is  a  kind 


NILE    NOTES. 


of  "  wolf 's  glen,"  and  phantoms  and  grotesque  ghosts  of 
every  kind  are  to  be  expected;  but  they  slid  off  their 
beasts  and  shuffled  down  the  sand  slope  to  the  shore  and 
sprang  aboard,  helping  up  the  most  shriveled  of  mummies, 
who  was  presented  to  the  Howadji  as  the  father  of  the 
Captain  of  the  Cataract,  and  it  was  clearly  expected  by 
the  Captain  and  the  crew  that  that  fact  would  be  recog 
nized  in  a  flowing  horn  of  brandy,  as  partly  discharging 
the  world's  debt  to  old  grisly,  for  begetting  that  pilot  and 
very  Reis  of  very  Reises — 

"Sing  George  the  Third,  and  not  the  least  in  -worth, 
For  graciously  begetting  George  the  Fourth." 

The  brandy  was  served,  and  the  Howadji  stepped  ashore 
to, visit  Philse,  while  the  Ibis  cleared  the  rest  of  the  rapids 
and  met  them  at  Mahratta,  the  first  Nubian  village. 


XXVII. 

att  Wtlumr. 

"  BUCKSHEESH  HOWADJI' — Buchsheesh  Howadji,"  wel 
comed  us  to  Nubia.  A  group  of  naked  little  negroes  with 
donkeys  awaited  us  on  the  bank,  and  intoned  the  national 
hymn,  "  Alms,  0  Shopkeeper,"  as  we  mounted  through 
the  sand.  The  Howadji  straddled  the  donkeys,  for  you  do 
not  mount  a  donkey  more  than  you  would  a  large  dog, 
and  sitting  upon  a  thick  cloth,  the  steed's  only  trapping, 
and  nothing  but  the  Howadji's  nimble  management  of  his 
legs  to  keep  that  on,  away  we  went,  helter  skelter,  over 
the  sand — shamble,  trot,  canter,  tumble,  up  again  and 
ahead,  jerking  and  shaking  upon  the  little  beasts,  that  bal 
anced  themselves  along  as  if  all  four  legs  at  once  were 
necessary  to  support  such  terrible  Howadji  weights. 

Away  we  dashed,  scrambling  along  the  bank.  The 
sky  cloudless — burning  the  sun — wild  the  waste  shore. 
Ledges  of  rock  lay  buried  in  the  sand,  and  at  the  head  of 
the  cataract,  its  Nubian  mouth,  a  palm-shaded  village. 
Fantastically  frowning  everywhere,  the  chaos  of  rock,  and 
beyond  and  among,  the  river  in  shining  armor,  sinuous  in 
the  foaming  struggle. 


178  NILE   NOTES. 


It  was  pure  desert — a  few  patches  of  green  grew  mis 
erable  in  the  sand,  forlorn  as  Christian  pilgrims  in  Saracen 
Jerusalem.  The  bold  formlessness  of  the  cliffs  allured  the 
eye.  Seen  from  the  shore  they  are  not  high,  but  the  mighty 
masses,  irregularly  strewn  and  heaped,  crowding  and  con 
centrating  upon  the  river,  shrinking  along  the  shores,  yet 
strewn  in  the  stream,  and  boldly  buffeting  its  fury,  are 
fascinatingly  fantastic.  Your  eye,  so  long  used  to  actual 
silence,  and  a  sense  of  stillness  in  the  forms  and  charac 
ters  of  the  landscape,  is  unnaturally  excited,  and  bounds 
restlessly  from  rock  to  river,  as  if  it  had  surprised  Nature 
in  a  move,  and  should  see  sudden  and  startling  changes. 
The  Howadji  has  caught  her  in  this  outlawed  corner 
before  her  arrangrnents  were  completed.  She  is  setting  up 
the  furniture  of  her  .scenery.  This  rock  is  surely  to  be 
shifted  there,  and  that  point  to  be  swept  away,  here. 
There  is  intense  expectation.  Ah  !  if  the  Howadji  had  not 
traveled  in  vain,  but  should  really  see  something  and  un 
derstand  the  secret  significance  of  cataracts  ! 

But  a  sudden  donkey-quake  wrecked  all  speculation, 
and  like  a  tower  shaken,  but  recovering  itself  from  falling, 
the  Howadji  allowed  the  quake  to  "reel  unheededly  away," 
and  alighted  quietly  upon  his  left  leg,  while  the  liberated 
donkey  smelt  about  for  food  in  the  sand,  like  an  ass.  The 
soaring  speculations  of  the  moment  upon  the  text  of  the 
prospect,  had  made  the  Howadji  too  unmindful  that  the 
nimble  clinging  of  his  legs  to  the  donkey's  ribs  was  the 
sole  belly-band  of  his  cloth  and  warrant  of  his  seat ;  so  the 
three  went  suddenly  asunder,  donkey,  Howadji  and  cloth, 


NUBIAN    WELCOME.  179 

but  reuniting,  went  forward  again  into  Nubia,  an  uncer 
tain  whole. 

The  barking  of  dogs  announced  our  arrival  at  Mahratta, 
the  first  Nubian  village.  Dull,  rnud  Syene  was  only  three 
miles  distant  over  the  desert.  Yet  here  mud  was  plaster, 
smooth  and  neat,  and  the  cleanliness  of  the  houses — a  cer 
tain  regular  grace  in  them — the  unvailed  faces  of  the 
women,  and  their  determined  color,  for  they  were  em 
phatically  black — -made  Nubia  pleasant,  at  once  and  for 
ever.  These  women  braiding  baskets,  or  busily  spinning 
in  the  sun,  with  mild  features,  and  soft  eyes — their  woolly  , 
hair  frizzling  all  over  their  heads,  and  bright  bits  of  metal 
glittering  around  their  necks  and  in  their  noses  and  ears, 
were  genuine  Ethiopians  in  their  own  land.  At  once  the 
Howadji  felt  a  nobler,  braver  race.  The  children  were 
gayer  and  healthier.  I  saw  ^no  flies  feeding  upon  Nubian 
eyes.  The  Nubian  houses  are  square  and  flat -roofed,  and 
often  palm-thatched.  Grain  jars  stood  around  them,  not 
unhandsomely,  and  mud  divans  built  against  the  outer 
walls  were  baked  by  the  sun  into  some  degree  of  comfort 
We  paused  in  a  group  of  women  and  children,  and  they 
gave  us  courteously  to  drink.  Then  we  rode  on,  our  route 
reeling  always  between  the  rocky  hills  and  the  rocky 
river. 

Suddenly  at  high  noon,  at  the  end  of  a  tortuous  rocky 
vista,  and  a  mile  or  two  away,  stood  Philse — form  in  form 
lessness,  measured  sound  in  chaotic  discord.  For  a  mo 
ment  it  was  Greece  visible — all  detail  was  devoured  by 
distance,  which  is  enamored  of  general  effect,  and  loves 


180  NILE   NOTES. 


only  the  essential  impression.  It  was  a  more  wonderful 
witchery  of  that  wild  scenery,  a  rich  revelation  of  forms  as 
fair  as  Prospero  could  have  built  before  Ferdinand's  eyes. 
For  the  beauty  and  grace  of  Philse,  so  seen,  in  that  stern 
and  vivid  contrast  of  form  and  feeling,  are  like  the  aerial 
architecture  which  shone  substantial  before  the  Magician's 
eyes,  as  imaging  the  glory  of  the  world — and  whose 
delicacy  sang  to  Ferdinand,  when  he  knew  not  if  it  were 
"  i'  the  air  or  the  earth." 

Philse,  so  delicately  drawn  upon  that  transparent  noon 
air,  was  an  ecstasy  of  form.  There  were  only  architraves 
and  ranges  of  columns  among  the  black  beetling  rocks. 
It  soothed  the  eye,  for  in  chaos  here  was  creation.  And 
even  broken  columns,  stately,  still — ranging  along  a  river, 
are  as  pleasant  to  the  eye  as  water  flowers. 


XXVIII. 


.. 

I  WISH  Philee  were  as  lovely  as  the  melody  of  its  name 
imports. 

But  I  do  not  dare  to  call  Isis  by  the  name  of  Venus  — 
or  if  the  Palmyrene  Zenobia,  following  the  triumph  of 
Aurelian,  was  pretty  —  then  is  Philse  chained  to  the  car  of 
Time,  lovely.  Poet  Eliot  Warburton,  indeed,  speaks  of 
its  "  exquisite  beauty."  What  shall  the  Howadji  do  with 
these  poets  ?  >v; 

Girdled  with  the  shining  Nile,  Philse  is  an  austere 
beauty  —  Isis-like,  it  sits  solemn-browed,  column  crushing 
column,  pylons  yet  erect,  and  whole  sides  of  temple  courts 
yet  standing  with  perfect  pillars  —  huge  decay,  wherein 
grandeur  is  yet  grand.  It  is  strange  to  see  human  traces 
so  lovely  in  a  spot  so  lonely.  Strange,  after  the  death  in 
life  of  the  Nile  valley,  to  emerge  upon  life  in  death  so 
imperial  as  Philse.  For  you  remember  that  the  Ibis  did 
not  pause  at  the  temples,  but  beheld  Thebes  ,and  Den- 
dereh,  as  she  flew,  like  pictures  fading  on  the  air. 

Seen  from  the  shore,  a  band  of  goldenest  green  surrounds 
the  island.  The  steep  bank  is  lithe  with  lupin  and  flower- 


182  NILE   NOTES. 


ing  weeds.  Palms  are  tangled,  as  they  spring,  with  vines 
and  creepers,  dragon-flies  float  sparkling  all  over  it — and 
being  the  sole  verdure  in  that  desolation,  the  shores  of 
Philae  are  gracious  as  blue  sky  after  storms.  A  party  of 
naked  young  Nubians  rowed  us  over  in  a  huge  tub  of  a 
boat,  which,  with  their  bent  boughs  of  trees  for  oars,  they 
could  scarcely  keep  against  the  current.  They  had  a 
young  crocodile  for  toy,  with  which  they  played  with  as 
much  delight  as  with  a  kitten.  The  infant  dragon  was 
ten  days  old,  and  about  a  foot  long.  It  sprawled  sluggishly 
about  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  as  its  mature  relatives  stretch 
indolently  along  the  sandy  shores,  and  the  boys  delighted 
to  push  it  back  with  a  stick  as  it  crawled  feebly  up  the 
side.  There  was  no  special  malice  in  it  at  this  treatment. 
Dragon  seemed  to  know  perfectly  that  he  was  born  heir  to 
a  breakfast  upon  some  of  his  tormentors,  or  their  near 
relatives,  and  that  the  fun  would  be  one  day  quite  the 
other  side  of  his  mouth,  into  which  our  young  friends 
thrust  sticks  and  stones,  not  perceiving,  the  innocents ! 
that  they  were  simply  rehearsing  their  own  fate.  The 
Howadji  wished  to  sacrifice  it  to  Osiris  as  they  stepped 
ashore  upon  his  island,  but  reflected  that  it  was  a  bad 
precedent  to  sacrifice  one  Grod  to  another, — and  wound 
through  the  crimson-eyed  lupin,  the  wild  bean,  and  a  few 
young  palms  that  fringe  the  island,  up  to  the  ruins. 

The  surface  of  the  island  is  a  mass  of  ruin.  But  the 
great  temple  of  Isis  yet  stands,  although  it  is  shattered, 
and  a  smaller  Hypethral  temple  overhangs  the  river.  It  is 
not  inarticulate  ruin,  but  while  whole  walls  and  architraves 


PHIL^E. 


and  column  ranges  remain,  several  buildings  are  shattered, 
and  their  fallen  walls  are  blended. 

Philse  was  the  holy  island  of  old  Egypt.  Thither  sailed 
processions  of  higher  purpose,  in  barques  more  gorgeous 
than  now  sail  the  river,  and  deep  down-gazing  in  the 
moonlight  Nile,  the  Poet  shall  see  the  vanished  splendor 
of  a  vanished  race,  centering  solemnly  here,  like  priestly 
pomp  around  an  altar.  Hither  >  bearing  gifts,  came  kneel 
ing  Magi,  before  they  repaired  to  the  Bethlehem  manger. 
And  kings,  not  forgotten  of  fame,  here  unkinged  them 
selves  before  a  kinglier.  For  the  island  was  dedicate  to 
Osiris,  the  great  God  of  the  Egyptians,  who  were  not  idol 
aters,  as  far  as  appears,  but  regarded  Osiris  as  the  incar 
nation  of  the  goodness  of  the  unutterable  G-od  of  Grods. 

But  it  were  easier  for  a  novice  to  trace  the  temple  lines 
among  these  ruins,  than  for  an  ordinary  Howadji  to  evolve 
lucidity  from  the  intricacy  of  the  old  Egyptian  theology. 
And  we  who  stroll  these  shores,  pilgrims  of  beauty  only, 
can  not  pause  to  lose  ourselves  in  the  darkness  and  ruin 
and  inodorous  intricacy  of  the  labyrinth,  like  mere  explor 
ers  of  the  pyramids.  We  know  very  little  of  the  Egyptian 
theology,  and  that  little  is  ill  told.  Had  I  graduated  at 
Heliopolis,  I  would  have  revealed  to  you  all.  But  many 
.  there  be,  who  not  having  taken  degrees  at  Heliopolis  or 
Memphis,  do  yet  treat  of  these  things.  Books  abound 
wherewith  the  Howadji,  in  his  Dahabieh  on  the  Nile,  or 
in  the  warm  slippers  at  home,  may  befog  his  brain,  and 
learn  as  much  of  the  religious  as  of  the  political  history  of 
Egypt. 


184  NILE   NOTES, 


What  did  the  tenth  king  of  the  seventeenth  dynasty 
for  the  world  ?  nay,  why  was  Ramses  great  ?  Ah,  confess 
that  you  love  to  linger  with  Cleopatra  more  than  with  Isis, 
and  adore  Memnon  more  willingly  than  Amun  Re !  Swart 
Cleopatra,  superbly  wound  in  Damascus  silks  and  Persian 
shawls,  going  gorgeously  down  the  Nile*  in  a  golden  gon 
dola  to  meet  Marc  Antony,  had  more  refreshed  my  eyes 
than  Sesostris  returning  victorious  from  the  Granges. 
Ramses  may  have  sacrificed  to  Isis,  as  Cleopatra  to  Ve 
nus.  But  in  the  highest  heaven  all  divinities  are  equal. 

Isis  was  the  daughter  of  Time,  and  the  wife  and  sister 
of  Osiris.  Horus  was  their  child,  and  they  are  the  Trinity 
of  Philse.  Osiris  and  Isis  finally  judged  the  dead,  and  were 
the  best  beloved  Gods  of  the  ancients,  and  best  known  of 
the  moderns.  Yet  the  devil  Typhoo  vanquished  Osiris, 
who  lies  buried  in  the  cataract,  which  henceforth  will  be 
an  emblem  to  the  poetic  Howadji  of  the  stern  struggle  of 
the  G-ood  and  Bad  Principle.  And  gradually,  as  he  medi 
tates  upon  Osiris  and  Egypt  and  a  race  departed,  one  of 
the  fine  old  fancies  of  the  elder  Egyptians  will  grow  into 
faith  with  him,  and  he  will  see  in  the  annual  overflow  of 
the  river  the  annual  resurrection  of  the  good  Osiris  to  bless 
the  land.  Tradition  buried  Osiris  in  the  cataract,  and  the 
solemn  Egyptian  oath,  was  "  by  him  who  sleeps  in  Philae." 
Here  was  the  great  temple  erected  to  his  mourning  widow, 
and  sculptured  gigantically  upon  the  walls,  the  cow- 
horned,  ever  mild-eyed  Isis,  holds  her  Horus  and  deplores 
her  spouse. 

Very  beautiful  is  Isis  in  all  Egyptian  sculptures.     Ten- 


PHIL^E.  -       185 


derly  tranquil  her  large  generous  features,  gracious  her 
full-lipped  mouth,  divine  the  dignity  of  her  mien.  In  the 
groups  of  fierce  fighters  and  priests,  and  beasts  and  bird- 
headed  Grods  that  people  the  walls,  her  aspect  is  always 
serene  and  solacing — the  type  of  the  feminine  principle  in 
the  beast  and  bird  chaos  of  the  world.  .  t  -• 

The  temples  are  of  Ptolemaic  times,  and  of  cpurse 
modern  for  Egypt,  although  traces  of  earlier  buildings  are 
still  discoverable.  The  cartouche,  or  cipher  of  Cleopatra, 
our  Cleopatra,  .among  the  many  of  Egypt,  appears  here. 
The  ruins  are  stately  and  imposing,  and  one  range  of 
thirty  columns  yet  remains.  The  capitals,  as  usual,  are 
different  flowers.  The  lotus,  the  acacia  and  others,  are 
wreathed  around  and  among  them.  Desaix's  inscription 
is  upon  the  wall  with  its  republican  date,  and  that  of  Pope 
Gregory  XYI. — the  effete  upon  the  effete. 

The  Howadji  wandered  among  the  temples.  The  col 
ored  ceilings,  the  columned  courts,  the  rude  sculptures  of  ' 
beasts  and  birds  and  flowers— rude  in  execution,  but  in 
idea  very  lofty — the  assembling  and  consecration  of  all 
nature  to  the  rulers  of  nature — these  were  grand  and  im 
posing.  Nor  less  so  in  their  kind,  the  huge  masses  of 
stone  so  accurately  carved,  where6f  the  temples  were 
built.  For  the  first  time,  at  Philse,  we  practically  felt  the 
rnassiveness  of  the  Egyptian  architecture.  These  temples 
scorn  and  defy  time,  as  the  immovable  rocks  the  river. 
Yet  the  river  and  time  wear  them  each  slowly,  but  how 
slowly,  away.  We  saw  the  singular  strength  of  the  build 
ings  and  the  precision  of  their  construction  by  climbing 


186  NILE    NOTES. 


the  roof  by  a  narrow  staircase,  built  in  the  wall  of  the 
great  temple.  The  staircase  emerges  upon  the  roof  over 
the  Adytum,  or  Holy  of  Holies,  with  which  singular,  small 
apertures  communicate.  Conveniences  for  the  G-ods  were 
these  ?  Divine  whispering-tubes  ?  Private  entrances  of 
the  spirit  ?  Scuttles  for  Osiris  and  the  fair  Isis,  or  part  of 
the  stage-scenery  of  the  worship,  wherethrough  priests 
whispered  for  (rods,  and  men  were  cozened  by  men? 

Ah !  Verde  Giovane !  fragments  of  whose  pleasant 
Philse  breakfast  are  yet  visible  on  this  roof — Time  loves 
his  old  tale  and  tells  it  forever  over.  Has  not  the  Howadji 
seen  in  Rome  the  Pope,  or  spiritual  papa  of  the  world,  sit 
ting  in  a  wooden  kneeling  figure,  and  playing  pray  under 
that  very  burning  eye  of  heaven — an  Italian  sun  of  a  June 
noonday  ? 

The  Arab  boys  crouched  in  their  blankets  in  the  sun, 
upon  the  roof,  as  if  it  were  cold,  for  to  the  Egyp 
tian  clothes  are  too  much  a  luxury  not  to  be  careful 
ly  used  when  he  has  any.  They  smoked  their  pipes 
carelessly,  incuriously,  as  if  they  were  sculptures  upon 
one  wall  and  the  Howadji  upon  another.  Pleasant,  the 
sunny  loitering,  with  no  Cicerone  to  disgust,  lost  in  mild 
musing  meditation,  the  moonlight  of  the  mind.  You  will 
have  the  same  red  book  or  another,  when  you  loiter,  and 
thence  learn  the  details  and  the  long  list  of  Ptolemies  and 
Euergetes,  who  built  and  added  and  amended.  Thence, 
too,  you  will  learn  the  translations  of  hieroglyphics — the 
theories  and  speculations  and  other  dusty  stuff  inseparable 
from  ruins. 


PHILSE.  187 


You  will  be  grave  at  Philse,  how  serenely  sunny  soever 
the  day.  But  with  a  gravity  graver  than  that  of  senti 
ment,  for  it  is  the  deadness  of  the  death  of  the  land  that 
you  will  feel.  The  ruins  will  be  to  you  the  remains  of  the 
golden  age  of  Egypt,  for  hither  came  Thales,  Solon,  Py 
thagoras,  Herodotus  and  Plato,  and  from  the  teachers  of 
Moses  learned  the  most  mystic  secrets  of  human  thought. 
It  is  the  faith  of  Philse  that,  developed  in  a  thousand  ways, 
claims  our  mental  allegiance  to-day — a  faith  transcending 
its  teachers,  as  the  sun  the  eyes  which  it  enlightens.  These 
wise  men  came — the  wise  men  of  Greece,  whose  wisdom 
was  Egyptian,  and  hither  comes  the  mere  American  Ho- 
wadji  and  learns,  but  with  a  difference.  He  feels  the 
greatness  of  a  race  departed.  He  recognizes  that  a  man 
only  differently  featured  from  himself,  lived  and  died  here 
two  thousand  years  ago. 

Ptolemy  and  his  Cleopatra  walked  these  terraces,  sought 
shelter  from  this  same  sun  in  the  shade  of  these  same  col 
umns,  dreamed  over  the'  calm  river,  at  sunset,  by  moon 
light,  drained  their  diamond-rimmed  goblet  of  life  and 
love,  then  embalmed  in  sweet  spices,  were  laid  dreamless 
in  beautiful  tombs.  Remembering  these  things,  glide 
gently  from  Philse,  for  we  shall  see  it  no  more.  Slowly, 
slowly  southward  loiters  the  Ibis,  and  leaves  its  columned 
shores  behind.  Grlide  gently  from  Philse,  but  it  will  not 
glide  from  you.  Like  a  queen,  crowned  in  death  among 
her  dead  people,  it  will  smile  sadly  through  your  memory 
forever. 


XXIX. 

a  (Crnttt  tjmt  flu  a  h  Jiimtfx  itmnlnl 

FLEETLY  the  Ibis  flew.  The  divine  days  came  and 
went.  Unheeded  the  longing  sunrise,  the  lingering 
eve.  Unheeded  the  lonely  shore  of  Nubia  that  swept, 
Sakia-singing,  seaward.  Unheeded  the  new  world  of  Af 
rican  solitude,  the  great  realm  of  Ethiopia.  Unheeded  the 
tropic  upon  which,  for  the  first  time,  we  really  entered, 
and  the  pylons,  columns  and  memorial  walls  that  stood 
solitary  in  the  sand.  The  Howadji  lay  ill  in  the  blue 
cabin,  and  there  is  no  beauty,  no  antiquity,  no  new  world 
to  an  eye  diseased. 

Yet  illness,  said  a  white-haired  form  that  sat  shadowy 
by  his  side,  hath  this  in  it,  that  it  smooths  the  slope  to 
death.  The  world  is  the  organization  of  vital  force,  but 
when  a  man  sickens,  the  substantial  reality  reels  upon  his 
brain.  The  cords  are  cut  that  held  him  to  the  ship  that 
sails  so  proudly  the  seas,  and  he  drifts  lonely  in  the  jolly- 
boat  of  his  own  severed  existence,  toward  shores  unknown. 
Drifts  not  unwillingly,  as  he  sweeps  farther  away  and  his 
eyes  are  darkened. 

After  acute  agony,  said  still  the  white-haired  shadow, 


A    CROW.  .      189 


pausing  slowly,  as  if  he  too  were  once  alive  and  young, 
death  is  like  sleep  after  toil.  After  long  decay,  it  is  as 
natural  as  sunset.  Yet  to  sit  rose-garlanded  at  the  feast 
of  love  and  beauty,  yourself  the  lover,  and  the  most  beau 
tiful,  and  hearing  that  you  shall  depart  thence  in  a  hearse, 
not  in  a  bridal  chariot,  to  rise  smilingly  and  go  gracefully 
away,  is  a  rare  remembrance  for  .  any  man- — an  heroic 
death  that  does  not  often  occur,  nor  is  it  to  be  rashly 
wished.  For  the  heroic  death  is  the  Grods'  gift  to  their  fa 
vorites.  "Who  shall  be  presumptuous  enough  to  claim  that 
favor  ?  Nay,  if  all  men  were  heroes,  how  hard  it  would 
be  to  die  and  leave  them,  for  our  humanity  loves  heroes 
more  than  angels  and  saints.  It  would  be  the  discovery  of 
a  boundless  California,  and  gold  would  be  precious  no  more. 
The  shadow^  was  silent,  and  the  Nubian  moonlight 
crept  yellow  along  the  wall ;  then,  playing  upon  the  Ho- 
wadji's  heartstrings  vaguely  and  at  random,  as  a  dream 
ing  artist  touching  the  keys  of  an  instrument,  he  pro 
ceeded.  Yet  we  may  all  know  how  many  more  the  dead 
are  than  the  living,  nor  be  afraid  to  join  them.  Here,  in 
Egypt,  it  is  tombs  which  are  inhabited,  It  is  the  cities 
which  are  deserted.  The  great  Ramses  has  died,  and  all 
his  kingdom — why  not  little  you  and  I  ?  Nor  care  to  lie  in  a 
tomb  so  splendid.  Ours  shall  be  a  sky- vaulted  Mausoleum, 
sculptured  with  the  figaries  of  all  life.  No  man  of  mature 
years  but  has  more  friends  dead  than  living.  His  friendly 
reunion  is  a  shadowy  society.  Who  people  for  him  the 
tranquil  twilight  and  the  summer  dawn  ?  In  "the  woods 
we  knew,  what  forms  and  faces  do  we  see  ?  "What  is  the 


190  NILE    NOTES. 


meaning  of  music,  and  who  are  its  persons  ?  What  are  the 
voices  of  midnight,  and  what  words  slide  into  our  minds, 
like  sudden  moonlight  into  dark  chambers,  and  apprise  us 
that  we  move  in  the  vast  society  of  all  worlds  and  all 
times,  and  that  if  the  van  is  lost  to  our  eyes  in  the  daz 
zling  dawn,  and  the  rear  disappears  in  the  shadow  of 
Night  our  Mother,  and  our  comrades  fall  away  from  our 
sides — the  van,  and  the  rear,  and  the  comrades  are  yet, 
and  all,  moving  forward  like  the  water-drops  of  the  Amazon 
to  the  sea.  It  is  not  strange  that  when  severe  sickness 
comes,  we  are  ready  to  die.  Long  buffeted  by  bleak,  blue 
icebergs,  we  see  at  last  with  equanimity  that  we  are  sail 
ing  into  Symmes'  hole. 

The  Nubian  moonlight  crept  yellow  along  the  wall, 
but  the  monotonous  speech  of  the  white-haired  mystery 
went  sounding  on,  like  the  faint  far  noise  of  the  cataract 
below  Philae. 

Otherwise  Nature  were  unkind.  She  smooths  the  slope, 
because  she  is  ever  gentle.  For  to  turn  us  out  of  doors 
suddenly  and  unwillingly  into  the  night,  were  worse  than 
a  cursing  father.  But  Nature  can  never  be  as  bad  as  man. 
What  boots  it  that  Faith  follows  our  going  with  a  rush 
lantern,  and  Hope  totters  before  with  a  lucifer  ?  Shrewd, 
sad  eyes  have  scrutinized  those  lights,  and  whispered  only, 
1 '  It  is  the  dancing  of  will-o'-the-wisps  among  the  tombs." 
It  is  only  the  gift  of  Nature  that  we  die  Well,  as  that  we 
are  bom  well.  It  is  Nature  that  unawes  death  to  us,  and 
makes  it  welcome  and  pleasant  as  sleep. 
A  mystery ! 


A    CROW.  191 


But  if  you  say  that  it  is  the  dim  dream  of  the  future, 
wrought  into  the  reality  of  faith,  that  smooths  death — then 
that  dream  and  faith  are  the  devices  of  nature,  like  these  en 
ticing  sculptures  upon  tomb  avenues,  to  lead  us  gently 
down.  For  I  find  that  all  men  are  cheered  by  this  dream, 
although  its  figures  are  as  the  men.  There  are  gardens 
and  houris,  or  hunting-grounds  and  exhaustless  deer,  or 
crystal  cities  where  white-robed  pilgrims  sing  hymns 
forever, — (howbeit  after  Egypt  no  philosophic  Howadji 
will  hold  that  long  white  garments  are  of  heaven.) 

The  flickering  form  waved  a  moment  in  the  moonlight 
and  resumed. 

Heaven  is  a  hint  of  Nature,  and  therein  shall  we  feel 
how  ever  kind  she  is — opening  the  door  of  death  into 
golden  gloom,  she  points  to  the  star  that  gilds  it.  She  does 
this  to  all  men,  and  in  a  thousand  ways.  But  in  all  lands 
are  seers  who  would  monopolize  the  seeing — Bunyan  pilots, 
sure  you  will  ground  in  the  gloom  except  you  embark  in 
their  ship,  and  with  their  treatise  of  navigation.  Mean 
while  the  earth  has  more  years  than  are  yet  computed, 
and  the  Bunyan  pilots  are  of  the  threescore  and  ten 
species. 

Priests  and  physicians  agree,  that  at  last  all  men  die 
bravely,  and  we  are  glad  to  listen.  0  Howadji,  that  bravery 
was  ours.  We  should  be  as  brave  as  the  hundred  of  any 
chance  crowd,  and  so  indirectly  we  know  how  we  should 
die,  even  if,  at  some  time,  Death  has  not  looked  closely 
at  us  over  the  shoulder,  and  said  audibly  what  we  knew — , 
that  he  held  the  fee  simple  of  our  existence. 


192  NILE    NOTES. 


The  Nubian  moonlight  waned  along  the  wall.  We 
praise  our  progress,  said  the  white-haired  shadow,  yet 
know  no  more  than  these  Egyptians  knew.  We  say  that 
we  feel  we  are  happier,  and  that  the  many  are  wiser  and 
better,  simply  because  we  are  alive,  and  they  are  mummies, 
and  life  is  warmer  than  death.  The  seeds  of  the  world 
were  sown  along  these  shores.  There  is  none  lovelier  than 
Helen,  nor  "wiser  than  Plato,  nor  better  than  Jesus.  They 
were  children  of  the  sun,  and  of  an  antiquity  that  already 
fades  and  glimmers  upon  our  eyes. 

Venus  is  still  the  type  of  beauty — our  philosophy  vis 
diluted  Platonism — our  religion  is  an  imitation  of  Christ. 
The  forms  of  our  furniture  are  delicately  designed  upon 
the  walls  of  Theban  tombs.  Thales  after  his  return  from 
Egypt  determined  the  sun's  orbit,  and  gave  us  our  year. 
Severe  study  detects  in  Egyptian  sculptures  emblems  of 
our  knowledge  and  our  skill.  Have  you,  0  Howadji,  new 
ideas,  or  only  different  developments  of  the  old  ones  ?  As 
the  Ibis  bears  you  southward,  are  you  proud  and  com 
passionate  of  your  elders  and  your  masters — or  do  you  feel 
simply  that  the  earth  is  round,  and  that  if  in  temperate 
regions  the  homely  lark  soars  and  sings,  in  the  tropics 
the  sumptuous  plumage  of  silent  birds  is  the  glittering 
translation  of  that  song  ? 

Have  you  mastered  the  mystery  of  death—- have  you 
even  guessed  its  meaning  ?  Are  Mount  Auburn  and  Green 
wood  truer  teachers  than  the  Theban  tombs?  Nature 
adorns  death.  Even  sets  in  smiles,  the  face  that  shall 
smile  no  more.  But  you  group  around  it  hideous  associa- 


A    CROW.  193 


tions,  and  of  the  pale  phantom  make  an  appalling  appari 
tion.  Broken  columns — inverted  torches — weeping  angels 
and  willows  are  within  the  gates  upon  which  you  write, 
"  Whoso  belie veth  in  me  shall  never  die."  Blackness  and 
knotting  bells,  weepers  and  hopeless  scraps  of  Scripture, 
these  are  the  heavy  stones  that  we  roll  against  the  sepul- 
chers  in  which  lie  those  whom  you  have  baptized  in  his 
name,  who  came  to  abolish  death. 

Why  should  not  you  conspire  with  Nature  to  keep 
death  beautiful,  nor  dare,  when  the  soul  has  soared,  to  dis 
honor  by  ihe  emblems  of  decay  the  temple  it  has  con 
secrated  and  honored.  Lay  it  reverently,  and  pleasantly 
accompanied,  in  the  earth,  and  there  leave  it  forever,  nor 
know  of  skulls  or  cross-bones.  Nor  shall  willows  weep  for 
a  tree  that  is  greener — nor  a  broken  column  symbolize  a 
work  completed — nor  inverted  flame  a  pure  fire  ascending. 
Better  than  all,  burn  it  with  incense  at  morning — so  shall 
the  mortal  ending  be  not  unworthy  the  soul,  nor  without 
significance  of  the  soul's  condition.  Tears,  like  smiles,  are 
of  nature,  and  will  not  be  repressed.  They  are  sacred,  and 
should  fall  with  flowers  upon  the  dead.  But  forgetting 
graveyards  and  cemeteries,  how  silent  and  solemn  soever^ 
treasure  the  dearest  dust  in  sacred  urns,  so  holding  in  your 
homes  forever  those  who  have  not  forfeited,  by  death,  the 
rights  of  hornev 

The  wan,  white-haired  shadow  wasted  in  the  yellow 
moonlight. 

But  all  illness  is  not  unto  death.     Much  is  rather  like 
dark,  stony  caves  of  meditation  by  the  wayside,  of  life. 

I 


194  NILE    NOTES. 


There  is  no  carousing  there,  no  Kushuk  Arnem  and 
Grhawazee  dancing,  but  pains  as  of  corded  hermits  and 
starving  ascetics.  Yet  the  hermit  has  dreams  that  the 
king  envies.  "We  come  thousands  of  miles  to  see  strange 
lands,  wonderful  cities,  and  haunts  of  fame.  But  in 
a  week's  illness  in  the  blue  cabin  or  elsewhere,  cities  of 
more  shining  towers  and  ponderous  palace-ranges,  lands  of 
more  wondrous  growth  and  races  than  ever  Cook  or  Co 
lumbus  discovered,  or  the  wildest  dreamer  dreamed,  dawn 
and  die  along  the  brain.  To  those  golden  gates  and 
shores  sublime  no  palmy  Nile  conducts— not  even  the  Eu 
phrates  or  Tigris,  nor  any  thousands  of  miles,  would  bring 
the  traveler  to  that  sight.  Sick  Sinbad,  traveling  only 
from  one  side  of  his  bed  to  the  other,  could  have  told  tales 
stranger  and  more  fascinating  than  enchanted  his  gaping 
guests.. 

Ah !  could  we  tame  the  fantastic  genius  that  only 
visits  us  with  fever  for  the  entertainment  of  our  health, 
we  could  well  spare  the  descriptive  poets,  nor  read  Vathek 
and  Hafiz  any  more.  But  he  is  untamable,  until  his 
brother  of  sleep,  that  good  genius  who  gives  us  dreams, 
will  consent  to  serve  our  waking — until  stars  shine  at  noon 
day — until  palms  wave  along  the  Hudson  shores. 


XXX. 

intttljniari. 

.--.-..         .         f 

"N  •  -  ~ .  ... 

THE  Nubians  devote  themselves  to  nudity  and. to 
smearing  their  hair  with  castor  oil'^ 

At  least  it  seems  so  from  the  river.  ,  Nor  have  they 
much  chance  to  do  any  thing  else,  for  Nubia  only  exists 
by  the  grace  of  the  desert  or  the  persistence,  of  the  Nile  in 
well-doing.  It  is  a  narrow  strip  of  green  between  the 
mountains  on  both  sides,  and  the  river.  Often  it  is  only 
the  mere  slope  of  the  bank  which  is  green.  You  ascend 
through  that,  pushing  aside  the  flowering  lupin  and  beans, 
and  stand  at  the  top  of  the  bank  in  the  desert.  Often  the 
desert  stretches  to  the  stream,  and  defies  it,  shoring  it 
with  sheer  sand.  A  few  taxed  palms,  a  few  taxed  Sakias, 
the  ever  heat  little  houses,  the  comely  black  race,  and, 
walling  all,  the  inexorable  mountains,  rocky,  jagged^  of 
volcanic  outline  and  appearance— these  are  the  few  fig 
ures  of  the  Nubian  panorama. 

Dates,  baskets,  mats,  the  gum  arid  charcoal  of  the 
mimosa,  a  little  senna,  and  farther  south  ebony,  sandal- 
wood,  rice,  sugar,  and  slaves,  are  all  the  articles  ,of  com 
merce—lupins,  beans,  and  dhourra,  a  kind  of  grain,  the 
crops  of  consumption. 


196  NILE   NOTES. 


It  is  a  lonely,  solitary  land.  There  are  no  flights  of 
birds,  as  in  Egypt ;  no  wide  valley  reaches,  greened  with 
golden  plenty.  Scarce  a  sail  whitens  the  yellow-blue  of 
the  riv^r.  A  few  solitary  camels  and  donkeys  pass,  spec 
tral,  upon  the  shore.  It  seems  stiller  than  Egypt,  where 
the  extent  of  the  crops,  the  frequent  villages  and  constant 
population,  relieve  the  sense  of  death.  In  Nubia,  it  is  the 
silence  of  intense  suspense.  The  unyielding  mountains 
range  along  so  near  the  river,  that  the  Howadji  fears  the 
final  triumph  of  the  desert. 

Like  a  line  of  fortresses  stretched  against  the  foe,  stand 
the  Sakias,  the  allies  of  the  river.  But  their  ceaseless 
sigh,  as  in  Egypt,  only  saddens  the  silence.  Through  the 
great  gate  of  the  cataract,  you  enter  a  new  world,  south 
of  the  Poet's  "  farthest  south."  A  sad,  solitary,  sunny 
world — but  bravery  and  the  manly  virtues  are  always 
the  dower  of  poor  races,  who  must  roughly  rough  it  to 
exist. 

In  appearance  and  character  the  Nubians  are  the  superi 
ors  of  the  Egyptians.  But  they  are  subject  to  them  by  the 
inscrutable  law  that  submits  the  darker  races  to  the  whiter, 
the  world  over.  The  sweetness  and  placidity  and  fidelity, 
the  love  of  country  and  family,  the  simplicity  of  character 
and  conduct  which  distinguish  them,  are  not  the  imperial 
powers  of  a  people.  Like  the  Savoyards  into  Europe,  the 
Nubians  go  down  into  Egypt  and  fill  inferior  offices  of 
trust.  They  are  the  most  valued  of  servants,  but  never 
lose  their  home — longing  and  return  into  the  strange,  sultry 
silence  of  Nubia,  when  they  have  been  successful  in  Egypt. 


SOUTHWARD.  19t 


Yet  the  antique  Ethiopian  valor  survives.  Divers  dis 
tricts  are  still  warlike,  and  the  most  savage  struggles  are 
not  unknown.  The  Ethiopians  once  resisted  the  Romans, 
and  the  fame  of  one-eyed  Queen  Candace,  whose  wisdom 
and  valor  gave  the  name  to  her  successors,  yet  flourishes 
in  the  land,  and  the  remains  of  grand  temples  attest  that 
the  great  Ramses  and  the  proud  Ptolemies  thought  it 
worth  while  to  own  it.  The  Nubians  bear  arms,  but  all 
of  the  rudest  kind — crooked  knives,  iron-shod  clubs,  and 
slings  and  a  shield  of  hippopotamus  hide— ^and  in  the  bat 
tles  the  women  mingle  and  assist. 

Yet  in  the  five  hundred  miles  from  Syene  to  Dongola, 
not  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  are  esti 
mated.  They  reckon  seven  hundred  Sakias  for  that  dis 
tance,  and  that  each  is  equal  to  one  thousand  five  hundred 
bushels  of  grain. 

These  shores  are  the  very  confines  of  civilization.  The 
hum  of  the  world  has  died  away  into  stillness.  The  sun 
shines  brightly  in  Nubia.  The  sky  is  blue,  but  the  sad 
ness  of  the  land  rests  like  a  shadow  upon  the  Howadji.  It 
is  like  civilization  dying  decently.  The  feW  huts  and  the 
few  people  smile  and  look  contented.  They  come  down  to 
the  shore,  as  the  Ibis  skims  along,  wonderingly  and  trust 
fully  as  the  soft-souled  Southern  savages,  beheld  with  curi 
osity  Columbus'  fleet.  They  are  naked  and  carry  clubs, 
and  beg  powder  and  arms,  but  sit  quietly  by  your  side  as 
you  sketch  or  sit  upon  the  shore,  or  run  like  hunting-dogs 
for  the  pigeons  you  have  shot.  If  there  be  any  impossible 
shot,  the  Howadji  is  called  upon  with  perfect  confidence 


198  NILE    NOTES. 


to  execute  it — for  a  clothed  Howadji  with  a  gun  is  a  den 
izen  of  a  loftier  sphere  to  the  nude  Nubians.  Why  does 
the  sun  so  spoil  its  children  and  fondle  their  souls  away  ? 
How  neat  are  their  homes,  like  houses  set  in  order !  For 
the  mighty  desert  frowns  behind,  and  the  crushing  govern 
ment  frowns  below.  Yet  the  placid  Nubian  looks  from  his 
taxed  Sakia  to  his  taxed  palms,  sees  the  sand  and  the  tax- 
gatherer  stealing  upon  his  substance,  and  quietly  smiles, 
as  if  his  land  were  a  lush-vineyarded  Rhine-bank. 

The  Howadji  had  left  the  little,  feline  Reis  at  Syene, 
his  home,  for  the  indolent  Nubian  blood  was  mingled  in 
his  veins,  and  made  him  seem  always  this  quiet  land  per 
sonified.  The  Ibis  flew,  piloted  by  a  native  Nubian,  who 
knew  the  river  through  his  country.  For  here  the  shores 
are  stony,  and  there  are  two  difficult  passages,  which  the 
natives  call  half-cataracts. 

Hassan  was  a  bright-eyed,  quiet  personage,  who  dis 
charged  his  functions  very  humbly,  sitting  with  the  An 
cient  Mariner  at  the  helm,  who  seemed,  grisly  Egyptian, 
half  jealous  of  his  Nubian  colleague,  and  contemptuously 
remarked,  when  we  reached  Philse,  returning,  that  no 
man  need  go  twice  to  know  the  river.  The  men  were  un 
easy  at  the  absence  of  their  head,  nor  liked  to  be  directed 
by  the  Nubian,  or  the  Ancient  Mariner ;  but  Hassan  sang 
with  them  such  scraps  of  Arabic  song  as  he  knew,  and  re 
galed  them  with  pure  Nubian  melodies,  which  are  .sweeter 
than  those  of  Egypt,  for  the  Nubians  are  much  more  mu 
sical  than  their  neighbors,  and  in  a  crew,  they  are  the  best 
and  most  exhilarating  singers.  He  sat  patiently  on  the 


SOUTHWARD.  199 


prow  for  hours,  watching  the  river j-  calling  at  times  to 
Grisly  to  turn  this  way  and  that,  and  Hassan  was  Uniform 
ly  genial  and  gentler,  pulling  an  occasional  oar,  returning. 

For  the  rest,  he  was  clothed  in  coarse,  white  cotton, 
haunted  the  'kitchen  after  dinner,  and  fared  sumptuously 
every  day.  Then  begged  tobacco  of  the  Howadji,  and 
smoked  it  as  serenely  as  if  it  were  decently  gotten. 

At  Kalabsheh  we  passed  the  Tropic  of  Cancer. 

But  are  not  the  Tropics  the  synonym  of  Paradise  ?  The 
tropics,  mused  the  Howadji,  and  instantly  imagination  was 
entangled  in  an  Indian  jungle,  and  there  struggled,  fettered 
in  glorious  foliage,  mistaking  the  stripes  and  eyes  of  a 
royal  Bengal  tiger,,  for  the  most  gorgeous  of  tropical  flow- 
;-  ers.  But  escaping  thence,  imagination  fluttered  and  fell, 
and  a  panorama  of  stony  hills,  a  cloudless,  luminous  sky,, 
but  bare  in  brilliance,  enlivened  by  no  clouds,  by  no -far- 
1  darting  troops  of  birds — a  narrow  strip  of  green  shore — 
silence,  solitude  and  sadness  revealed  to  the  Howadji  the 
dream-land  of  the  tropics. 

Yet  there  was  a  sunny  spell  in  that  land  and  scenery 
which  held  me  then,  and  holds  charmed  my  memory  now. 
It  was  a  sleep — we  seemed  to  live  it  and  breathe  it,  as  the 
sun  in  Egypt.  Ttiere  was  luminous  languor  in  the  air,  as 
from  opiate  flowers,  yet  with  only  their  slumberv  and  none 
of  their  fragrance.  It  seemed  a  failure  of  creation,  or  a  cre 
ation  not  yet  completed.  Nature  slept  and  dreamed  over 
her  work,  and  whoso  saw  her  sleep,  dreamed  vaguely  her 
dreams. 

Puok-piloted  and  girdling  the  earth  in  an  hour,  would 


.700  NILE    NOTES. 


not  the  Howadji  feel  that  only  a  minute's  journey  of 
that  hour  was  through  the  ripe  maturity  of  creation — • 
tlie  rest,  embryo — -half  conceived  or  hopeless?  "The 
world"  is  only  the  fine  focus  of  all  the  life  of  the  world  at 
any  period ;  but,  ^0  Gunning  in  blue  spectacles,  picking 
gingerbread  nuts  off  the  Bom  palm,  how  small  is  that 
focus ! 

One  Nubian  day  only  was  truly  tropical.  It  was  near 
Derr,  the  chief  town,  and  the  afcure  calm  and  brilliance  of 
the  atmosphere  forced  imagination  to  grow  glorious  gardens 
upon  the  shores,  and  to  crown  with  forests,  vine-waving, 
bloom-brilliant,  the  mountains,  desert  no  longer,  but  divine 
as  the  vision-seen  hill  of  prophets ;  and  to  lead  triumphal 
trains  of  white  elephants,  bearing  the  forms  and  costumes 
of  Eastern  romance,  and  giraffes,  and  the  priestly  pomp  of 
India,  through  the  groves  of  many-natured  palms  that 
fringed  the  foreground  of  the  picture.  It  was  summer  and 
sunshine— a  very  lotus  day. 

I  felt  the  warm  breath  of  the  morning  streaming  over 
the  Ibis,  like  radiance  from  opening  eyes,  even  before  the 
lids  of  the  dawn  were  lifted.  Then  came  the  sun  over 
the  Arabian  mountains,  and  the  waves  danced  daintily  in 
the  rosy  air,  and  the  shores  sloped  serenely,  and  the  river 
~  sang  and  gurgled  against  the  prow,  whereon  sat  the  white- 
turbaned,  happy  Hassan,  placidly  smoking,  and  self-in 
volved,  as  if  he  heard  all  the  white  Nile  secrets,  and  those 
of  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon.  The  Ibis  spread  her  white 
wings  to  the  warm  wooing  wind,  and  ran  over  the  water. 
Was  she  not  well  called  Ibis,  with  her  long,  sharp  wings, 


SOUTHWARD.  201 


loved  of  the  breeze,  that  toys  with  them  as  she  flies  and 
fills  them  to  fullness  with  speed  ?  , 

The  sky  was  cloudless  and  burningly  rosy.  To  what 
devote  the  delicious  day  ?  What  dream  so  dear,  what  book 
so  choice,  that  it  would  satisfy  the  spell?  Luxury  of 
dotibt  and  long  delay !  Such  wonder  itself  was  luxury — 
it  rippled  the  mind  with  excitement,  delicately  as  the 
wind  kissed  the  stream  into  wavelets.  -Yet  the  Howadji 
looked  along  the  shelves  and  the  book  was  found,  and  in 
the  hot  heart  of  noon  he  had  drifted  far  into  the  dreamy 
depths  of  Herman  Melville's  Mardi.  Lost  in  the  rich  ro 
mance  of  Pacific  reverie,  he  felt  all  around  him  the  radiant 
rustling  of  Yillah's  hair,  but  could  not  own  that  Poly 
nesian  peace  was  profounder  than  his  own  Nubian  si 
lence.- 

Mardi  is  unrhymed  poetry,  but  rhythmical  and  meas 
ured.  Of  a  low,  lapping  cadence  is  the  swell  of  those  sen 
tences,  like  the  dip  of  the  sun-stilled,  Pacific  waves.  In 
more  serious  moods,  they  have  the  grave  music  of  Bacon's 
Essays.  Yet  who  but  an  American  could  have,  written 
them  ?  And  essentially  American  are  they,  although  not 
singing  Niagara  or  the  Indians. 

Romance  or  reality,  asked,  dazed  in  doubt,  bewildered 
Broadway  and  approving  Pall  Mall.  Both,  erudite  metro 
politans,  and  you,  0  ye  of  the  warm  slippers.  The  Ho 
wadji  is  no  seaman,  yet  can  he  dream  the  possible  dreams 
of  the  mariner  in  the  main-top  of  the  becalmed  or  trade- 
wind-wafted  Pacific  whaler.  In  those  musings,  mingles 
rare  reality,  though  it  be  romantically  edged,  as  those 


202  NILE    NOTES. 


palms  of  Ibreem,  seen  through  the  glass,  are  framed  in 
wondrous  gold  and  purple — 

On,  on,  deeper  into  the  Pacific  calm,  farther  into  that 
Southern  spell !  The  day  was  divine — the  hush,  the  dazzle, 
the  supremacy  of  light,  were  the  atmosphere  of  the  tropics, 
and  if  toward  evening,  and  for  days  after,  the  anxious  North 
blustered  in  after  her  children,  she  could  never  steal  that 
day  from  their  memories.  The  apple  was  bitten.  The 
Howadji  had  tasted  the  Equator. 


XXXI. 

i,  Hi  inn 


WE  sought  the  South  no  longer.  Far  flown  already 
into  a  silent  land,  the  Ibis  finally  furled  her  wings  at  Aboo 
Simbel.  But  far  and  ever  farther  southward,  over  the 
still  river-reaches,  pressed  piercing  thought,  nor  paused  at 
Khartoum  where  the  Nile  divides,  nor  lingered  until  lost, 
in  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon.  Are  they  sarcastically 
named,  those  mountains,  or  prophetically,  that  when  they 
are  explored,  the  real  moon  ranges  shall  be  determined  ? 

Up  through  the  ruins  of  the  eldest  land  and  the  eldest 
race  came  two  children  of  the  youngest,  and  stood  gazing 
southward  into  silence.  Southward  into  the  childishness 
of  races  forever  in  their  dotage  or  never  to  grow- — toward 
the  Dinkas  and  the  shores  loved  of  the  4otus,  where  they 
worship  trees,  and  pull  out  the  incisors  for  beauty,  and 
where  a.  three-legged  stool  is  a  King's  throne. 

The  South!  our  synonym  of  love,  beauty  and  a  wide 
world  unrealized.  Lotus  fragrance  blows  outward,  from 
that  name,  and  steeps  us  in  blissful  dreams  that  bubble 
audibly  in  song  from  poets'  lips.  It  is  the  realm  of  faery- 
fantasy  and  perfected  passion.  Dark,  deep  eyes  gushing 


204  NILE    NOTES. 


radiance  in  rapt  summer  noons,  are  the  South,  visible  and 
bewildering  to  the  imagination  of  the  North.  Whoso  sails 
southward  is  a  happy  Mariner,  and  we  fancy  his  ship 
gliding  forever  across  tranced  sapphire  seas,  reeking  with 
rarest  odors,  steeped  iji  sunshine  and  silence,  wafted  by 
winds  that  faint  with  sweet  and  balm  against  the  silken 
sails,  for  the  South  has  no  wood  for  us  but  sandal  and 
ebony  and  cedar,  and  no  stuffs  but  silks  and  cloth  of  gold. 
Sumptuous  is  the  South — a  Syren  singing  us  ever 
forward  to  a  bliss  never  reached  ;  but  with  each  mile  won 
she  makes  the  pursuit  more  passionate,  brimming  the  cup 
that  only  feeds  the  thirst,  with  delicious  draughts  that  taste 
divine.  Then  some  love-drunken  poet  beholds  her  as  a 
person,  and  bursts  into  song— 

•"  I  muse,  as  in  a  trance,  whene'er 

The  languors  of  thy  love-deep  eyes 
Float  on  to  me.     I  would  I  were 

So  tranced,  so  rapt  in  ecstasies,-- - 
To  stand  apart  and  to  adore, 
Gazing  on  thee  for  evermore — 
Serene,  imperial  Eleanore." 

The  morning  was  bright  when  the  Ibis  stopped  at  Aboo 
Simbel.  Nero  presently  arrived,  and  the  blue  pennant 
passed,  flying  forward  to  Wady  Haifa  and  the  second 
cataract.  After. a  brief  delay  and  a  pleasant  call,  Nero 
stretched  into  the  stream,  and  the  Italian  tricolor  floated 
off  southward,  and  disappeared.  The  Ibis  was  left  alone  at 
the  shore.1  Over  it  rose  abruptly  a  bold  picturesque  rock 


ULTIMA    THU.LE.  205 

which,  of  all  the  two  hundred  miles  between  the  cataracts, 
is  the  natural  site  for  a  rock  temple, 

'A  grand  goal  is  Aboo  Simbel  for  the  long  Nile  voyage, 
and  the  more  striking  that  it  is  approached  from  Cairo, 
through  long  ranges  of  white  plaster  mosques,  and  mina 
rets,  and  square  mud  pigeon  houses — the  highest  architec 
tural  attempt  of  modern  Egyptian  genius  en  the  Nile. 
The  Howadji  is  ushered  by  dwarfs  into  the  presence  of  a 
God.     The  long  four  weeks'  flight  of  the  Ibis  through  such 
a  race  and  works  to  >  this  temple  goal,  is  the  sa,d,  severe 
criticism   of  Time   upon   himself  and  his  own  changes. 
For  although  Time  is  wise,  and  buries,  where  he  can,  his 
past  from  his  future,  yet  here  is  something  mightier  than 
he  ;  and  the  azure  of  the  sky  which  he  can  not  tarnish, 
preserves  the  valorous  deeds  of  his  youth  freshly  and  fair 
to  his  unwilling  age.     Vainly  ^he  strives  to  bury  the  proofs 
and  works  of  his  early  genius — vainly  in  remote  Nubia  he 
calls  upon  the  desert. to  hide  them,  that  young  England 
and  young  America  may  flatter  their  fond  conceits,  that 
now  for  the  first  time  man  fairly  lives,  and  human  genius 
plays.     Some  wandering  Belzoni  thwarts  his  plans — foils 
the  desert,  and  on  the   first  of  August,  1817,  with   Mr. 
Beechy,  and  captains  Irby  and  Mangles,  pushes  his  way 
into  <(the  finest  and  most  extensive  excavation  in  Nu 
bia" — thinks  it  "very  large"  at  firsthand  gradually  his 
"  astonishment  increased,"  as  he  finds  it  to  be  "  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  of  temples,  enriched  with  beautiful  in 
taglios—painting — colossal   figures,    &c."    which  .&c:    is 
precisely  the  inexpressible  grandeur  of  Aboo  Simbel.     For 


206  NILE   NOTES. 


who  has  not  flown  up  the  Nile,  must  begin  his  travels 
again,  if  he  would  behold  ruins.  Standing  at  Aboo  Simbel, 
and  looking  southward,  Greece  and  Rome  are  toys  of 
yesterday,  and  vapors  wreathing  away.  When  once  the 
Egyptian  temples  are  seen^  they  alone  occupy  the  land, 
and  suggest  their  own  priests  and  people.  The  hovels  of 
the  present  race  are  as  ant-hills  at  their  gates.  Their 
prominency  and  importance  can  not  be  conceived  from 
the  value  and  interest  of  other  ruins.  Here  at  Aboo  Simbel 
the  Howadji,  after  potential  potations  and  much  medita 
tion,  is  inclined  to  bless  the  desert — for  he  feels  that  in 
Egypt  it  is  the  ally  of  art,  and  the  friend  pf  modern  times. 

The  Howadji  entered  now  upon  a  course  of  temples. 
The  Ibis  pointed  her  prow  northward,  and  sight-seeing 
commenced.  Yet  on  these  pages  remains  slight  detail  of 
what  she  saw  as  she  threaded,  homeward,  that  wonderful 
wilderness  of  ruin.  Not  a  diary  of  details,  but  slightest 
sketches  of  impression,  were  found  at  Cairo  under  her 
wing. 

This  day  at  Aboo  Simbel,  while  the  first  officer,  Seyd, 
superintended  the  taking  down  of  the  masts  and  sails  and 
the  arrangement  of  the  huge  oars — for  we  were  to  float  and 
row  northward,  when  the  wind  would  allow — and  while  the 
Hadji  Hamed  and  his  kitchen  were  removed  to  the  ex 
treme  prow,  to  make  room  for  the  rowers  on  the  middle 
deck,  the  Howadji  climbed  the  steep  sand-bank  to  the. 
temples  of  Aboo  Simbel. 

The  smaller  one  is  nearest  the  river,  and  is  an  excavation 
in  the  solid  rock,  with  six  sculptured  figures  on  the  facade. 


U  L  T I  M'A    TH  U  L  E.  207 

Two  of  these  are  Athor,  the  Egyptian  Venus,  to  whom  the 
temple  was  .consecrate.  She  had  beautiful  names,  arid  of 
delicate  significance,  as  the  Lady  of.  the  West,  because  she 
received  the  setting  sun — the  Night,  not  primeval  darkness, 
but  the  mellow  tropical  night,  breathing  coolness  and  balm. 
Athor's  emblems  are  so  like  those  of  Isis,  that  the  two  deities 
are  often  confounded.  She  was  the  later  Aphrodite  of  the 
Greeks,  to  whom  they  built  the  Dendereh  temple ;  and, 
like  Isis,  is  cow-horned  and  mild-eyed,  with  a  disk  be 
tween  the  horns.  Athor  was  a  gracious  and  gentle  Grod- 
dess,  and  properly  was  her  temple  encountered  here,  far 
in  the  gracious  and  gentle  South,  whose  sweetness  and 
languor  were  personified  in  the  tender  tranquillity  of  her 
mien. 

But  beyond  and  higher,  is  the  great  temple  of  Aboo 
Simbel,  in  front  of  which  sit  four  Colossi,  figures  of  Ram 
ses  the  Grreat.  Their  grandeur  and  beauty  are  beyond  ex 
pression,  and  the  delight  in  their  lofty  character  of  beauty 
quite  consumes  the  natural  wonder  at  their  uninjured  du 
ration  for  twenty  or  thirty  centuries.  Yet  in  Egypt,  the 
mind  gradually  acquires  a  sense  of  permanence  in  the 
forms  that  meet  the  eye.  Permanence  is  the  spirit  of  the 
climate,  and  of  the  simplicity  of  the  landscape,  and.  of  the 
supreme  silence.  "What  is  built  at  the  present  time,  is 
evidently  so  transitory  in  its  construction  and  character, 
yet  lasts  so  long,  .that  the  reasons  of  the  fact  of  duration 
are  clear  to  your  mind  before  wonder  is  awakened.  The 
dry  warm  air  is  the  spell,  and  as  it  feeds  your  lungs  and 
life,  it  breathes  into  your  mind  its  most  significant  secrets. 


208  NILE    NOTES. 


In  these  faces  of  Ramses,  seven  feet  long,  is  a  Grodlike 
grandeur  and  beauty,  which  the  Greeks  never  reached. 
They  are  not  only  colossal  blocks  of  stone,  but  the  mind 
can  not  escape  the  feeling  that  they  were  conceived  by  co 
lossal  minds.  Such  only  cherish  the  idea  of  repose  so  pro 
found,  for  there  is  no  type  or  standard  in  nature  for  works 
like  these,  except  the  comparative  character  of  the  real 
expression  of  real  heroes,  and  more  than  heroes.  If  a  poet 
should  enter  in  dreams  the  sacred  groves  of  the  grand 
est  mythology,  these  are  the  forms  he  would  expect  to  see, 
breathing  grandeur  and  godly  grace.  They  sit  facing  the 
south-east,  and  as  if  necessarily  expectant  of  the  world's 
homage.  There  is  a  sweetness  beyond  smiling  in  the 
rounded,  placid  mouth.  The  nose  is  arched,  the  almond- 
eye  voluptuously  lidded  as  the  lips  are  rounded,  and  the 
stillness  of  their  beauty  is  steeped  in  a  placid  passion,  that 
seems  passionlessness,  and  which  was  necessarily  insepara 
ble  from  the  works  of  Southern  artists.  It  is  a  new  type 
of  beauty,  not  recalling  or  suggesting  any  other.  It  is 
alone  in  sculpture,  serene  and  Grodlike.  Greek  Jupiter  is 
grand  and  terrible,  but  human.  The  Jupiter  of  any 
statue,  even  the  Tonans  or  the  Olympian,  might  have 
showered  in  gold  upon  Danae,  or  folded  lo  in  the  embra 
cing  cloud,  or  have  toyed  with  fond,  foolish  Semele  till  his 
fire  consumed  her.  The  Greek  Gods  are  human.  But 
these  elder  figures  are  above  humanity — they  dwell  se 
renely  in  abstract  perfection. 

In  their  mystic  beauty  all  this  appears.  And  the 
American  Howadji  wonders  to  find  this  superhuman  char- 


ULTIMA    THU.LE.  209 

acter  projected  into  such  expression.  The  face  of  one  of 
these  Aboo  Simbel  figures  teaches  more  of  elder  Egypt 
than  any  hieroglyphed  history  which  any  Old  Mortality 
may  dig  out,  in  the  same  way  that  the  literature  of  Greece 
and  the  character  of  Greek  art  reveal  the  point  of  develop 
ment  reached  by  the  Greek  nature,  which,  standing  as  a 
world-student  at  Aboo  Simbel,  is  the  point  of  interest  to 
the  Howadji.  Strangely  they  sit  there,  and  have  sat,  the 
beautiful  bloom  of  eternal  youth  and  the  beautiful  balance 
of  serene  wisdom  in  their  faces,  with  no  trace  there  of  the 
possibility  of  human  emotion ;  and  so  they  sit  and  benignly 
smile  through  the  Howadji's  mind  forever,  as  the  most  tri 
umphant  realization  in  art  of  the  abstract  perfection  of 
conscious  being. 

After  which  consolatory  conclusion,  that,  with  the  re 
sounding  tongues  of  the  figures,  the  Howadji  would  be 
glad  to  thunder  chorally  to  the  world,  he  descends  the 
sand-slope  into  the  interior  of  the  temple,  for  the  sand  has 
so  filled  it,  that  although  the  entrance  is  some  thirty  feet 
high,  he  must  stoop  to  enter.  The  day  was  waning,  and 
the  great  hall  was  dark.  The  present  Howadji  was  yet 
weak  with  the  illness  which  the  white-haired  phantom 
watched,  and  remained  with  Congo  upon  the  sand-slope, 
looking  into  the  temple,  as  the  light  wood  was  kindled  in  a 
portable  crate,  to  illuminate  the  interior.  But  the  Pacha 
penetrated  two  hundred  feet  to  the  Adytum.  He  passed 
the  Osiride  columns,  which  are  a  grand  feature  of  the 
early  temples,  being  statues  with  placid  features  and  arms 
folded  upon  their  breast,  cut  upon  the  face  of  square  pil- 


210  NILE    NOTES. 


lars,  and  reached  the  four  sitting  figures  in  the  Adytum^- 
-a  separate  interior  niche  and  holy  of  holies,  figures  of  the 
Gods  to  whom  the  temple  was  dedicate.  Chiefly  Aboo 
Simbel  was  dedicate  to  Ra,  the  sun,  also  to  Kneph,  Osiris, 
and  Isis,  by  Ramses  the  Great.  Upon  all  the  walls  are 
sculptures  of  his  victories,  his  offerings  to  the  Gods,  and 
religious  rites.  These  walls  are  blackened  now  by  smoke, 
and  each  fresh  party  of  Howadji,  with  its  fresh  portable 
crate  of  light  wood,  can  not  avoid  smoking  its  share  of  the 
temple. 

The  sun  was  setting  as  the  Howadji  emerged,  and 
looked  their  last  upon  the  placid  Gods,  whose  grace 
made  the  twilight  tender.  They  slid  slowly  down  the  sand 
to  the  shore,  and  reached  the  poor,  dismantled  Ibis.  Fleet, 
fair  Ibis  no  longer — the  masts  were  down  and  were  stretch 
ed  over  the  deck,  like  ridgepoles  for  an  awning,  and  the 
smoke  of  Kara  Kooseh  ascended  from  the  prow,  and  the 
sharp,  lithe  yards  pierced  the  blue  no  more.  The  glory 
was  gone,  and  the  beauty;  .It  was  an  Ibis  no  longer,  but 
a  "  loggy  old  Junk,  a  lumpish  Gundelow,"  said  the  sen 
tentious  Pacha. 

The  golden-sleeved  Commander  received  us,  taking 
credit  for  all  that  had  been  done  ;  and  as  the  stars  tri 
umphed  over  the  brief  twilight,  the  crew,  with  a  slow, 
mournful  song,  pushed  away  from  the  shore  and  we  headed 
southward  no  longer.  There  was  a  sadness  in  that  star 
light  beyond  any  other  upon  the  Nile.  The  Howadji  had 
reached  their  southest  south,  and  the  charm  of  exploration 
was  over.  Return  is  always  sad,  for  return Js  unnatural 


ULTIMA    THTJLE. 


211 


Ever  forward,  ever  farther,  is  the  law  of  life,  and  the  out 
ward  seems  not  to  keep  pace  with  the  inward,  even  if  it 
does  not  seem  to  dwarf  and  defraud  it,  when  we  return  to 
the  same  places  and  the  old  pursuits.  As  the  South  re- 
cceded  in  the  starlight,  that  silent  evening,  a  duty  and  a 
right  seemed  to  be  slipping  away  —  the  Hbwadji  were  turn 
ing  the  farthest  point  of  dreaming,  their  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  beyond  which  slept  their  Indian  seas,  and  drifted 
again  with  the  mystic  stream  slowly  out  of  the  Past  to 
ward  the  insatiable  Future. 

The  moon  rose  and  hung  golden  over  Arabia,  as  the 
sad,  monotonous  song  of  the  crew  trembled  and  died  away, 
and  with  the  slow,  measured  throb  of  oars,  the  Howadji's 
hearts  beat  homeward. 


XXXII. 


WE  floated  and  rowed  slowly  down  the  river.  When 
the  wind  blew  violently  the  crew  did  not  row  at  all,  and 
we  took  our  chance  at  floating,  spinning  round  upon  the 
river,  and  drifting  from  shore  to  shore.  When  it  swelled 
to  a  gale,  we  drew  in  under  the  bank  and  allowed  its  fury 
to  pass.  Once,  for  two  days  it  held  us  fast,  and  the  irate 
Howadji  could  do  nothing  but  await  the  pleasure  of  a  lull. 
But  the  gale  outlasted  their  patience.  They  had  explored 
all  the  neighboring  shore,  had  seen  the  women  with  glass 
beads,  and  necklaces,  and  black  woolen  garments,  and 
crisp  woolly  hair.  They  had  sat  upon  the  mud  seats  of  the 
houses,  and  had  been  the  idols  of  popular  attention  and  ad 
miration.  But  the  wind  would  not  blow  away,  and  the 
too  happy  crew  stretched  upon  the  bank,  and  shielded  by 
it,  slept  and  chatted  all  day  long.  The  third  day,  the 
gale  still  blew,  though  feebly,  and  orders  for  tracking  were 
issued  from  the  blue  cabin.  There  was  great  reluctance, 
for  it  is  hard  work  to  pull  a  Junk  or  G-undelow  against  a 
wind.  A.nd  as  the  supple-limbed,  smooth-  skinned  Moham 
mad,  one  of  the  best  workers  of  the  crew,  undertook,  stand- 


NORTHWARD  213 


ing  on  the  shore  among  the  rest,  who  did  not  dare  to 
speak,  to  expostulate  and  complain  ;  the  Pacha,  in  a  royal 
rage,  was  about  springing  upon  him  for  tremendous  chas 
tisement,  when  Mohammad,  warned  by  his  fellows,  sprang 
up  the  bank  and  disappeared.  The  rest,  appalled  and 
abashed,  seized  the  rope  and  went  to  work.  We  tracked 
but  a  few  miles  that  day,  however,  for  it  was  too  heavy 
work. 

The  wind  died  at  last,  but  it  was  never  as  peaceable 
as  it  should  have  been.  For  although  the  hopeful,  ascend 
ing  Howadji  hears  that  with  January  or  February  the  soft 
southern  gales  begin  to  blow,  and  will  waft  him  as  gently 
northward  as  the  north  winds  blew  him  south,  he  finds 
that  those  southern  gales  blow  only  in  poetry,  or  poetic 
memory. 

In  the  calmer  pauses,  however,  we  tracked,  and  rowed, 
and  drifted  to  Dekkar,  and  a  yellow,  vaporous  moon  led 
us  to  the  temple.  Seyd  accompanied  the  Howadji  with 
the  portable  crate,  wherewith  they  were  to  do  their  share 
of  smoking  the  remains.  All  Nubia  was  asleep  in  the  yel 
low  moonlight,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Dekkar  rushed  forth 
from  their  huts  as  we  passed  along,  the  huge  Seyd  pre 
ceding,  bearing  th6  crate  like  a  trophy,  and  snarling  at 
all  curs  that  shivered  the  hushed  silence  with  their  shrieks. 
Doubtless,  as  we  approached  the  temple,  and  the  glare  of 
our  torches  flashed  through  its  darkness,  meditative  jackals 
and  other  beasts  of  prey  withdrew  to  the  more  friendly 
dark  of  distance.  And  then,  if  ever,  standing  in  the  bright 
moonlight  among  Egyptian  ruins,  the  apostrophes  and 


214  NILE    NOTES. 


sentimentalities  and  extravagancies  of  Yolney  and  his 
brood,  flap  duskily  through  the  mind  like  birds  of  omen  ill. 
There  is  something  essentially  cheerful,  however,  in 
an  Egyptian  ruin.  It  stands  so  boldly  bare  in  the  sun  and 
moon,  its  forms  are  so  massive  and  precise,  its  sculptures 
so  simply  outlined,  and  of  such  serene  objectivity  of  ex 
pression,  and  time  deals  so  gently  with  the  ruin's  self,  as 
if  reluctant  through  love  or  fear  to  obliterate  it,  or  even  to 
hang  it  with  flowery  weepers  and  green  mosses,  that  your 
feeling  shares  the  freshness  of  the  ruin,  and  you  reserve 
for  the  Coliseum  or  the  Parthenon  that  luxury  of  soft  senti 
ment,  of  which  Childe  Harold's  apostrophe  to  Rome  is  the 
excellent  expression.  We  must  add  to  this,  too,  the  entire 
separation  from  our  sympathy,  of  the  people  and  principles 
that  originated  these  structures.  The  Romans  are  our 
friends  and  neighbors  in  time,  for  they  lived  only  yester 
day.  History  sees  clearly  to  the  other  side  of  Rome,  and 
beholds  the  campagna  and  the  mountains,  before  the  wolf 
was  whelped,  that  mothered  a  world.  But  along  these 
shores  history  sees  not  much  more  than  we  can  see.  It 
can  not  look  within  the  hundred  gates  of  Thebes,  and  bab 
bles  very  inarticulately  about  what  it  professes  to  know. 
"We  have  a  vague  feeling  that  this  was  the  eldest  born  of 
Time— certainly  his  most  accomplished  and  wisest  child, 
and  that  the  best  of  our  knowledge,  is  a  flower  off  that 
trunk.  But  that  is  not  enough  to  bring  us  near  to  it.  The 
Colossi  sit  speechless,  but  do  not  look  as  if  they  would 
speak  our  language,  even  were  their  tongues  loosed. 
Theirs  is  another  beauty,  another  feeling  than  ours,  and 


NORTHWARD.  215 


except  to  passionless  study  and  universal  cosmopolitan 
interest,  Egypt  has  only  the  magnetism  of  mystery  for  us, 
until  the  later  days  of  its  decline. 

Our  human  interest  enters  Egypt  with  Alexander  the 
Great,  and  the  Greeks,  and  becomes  vivid  and  redly 
warm  with  the  Romans  and  Cleopatra,  with  Caesar  and 
Marc  Antony,  with  Hadrian  and  Antinous.  The  rest  are 
phantoms  and  specters  that  haunt  the  shores.  Therefore 
there  are  two  interests  and  two  kinds  of  remains  in  Egypt, 
the  Pharaohnic  and  the  Ptolemaic — the  former  represents 
the  eldest,  and  the  latter  the  youngest,  history  of  the  land. 
The  elder  is  the  genuine  old  Egyptian  interest,  the  young 
er  the  Greco- Egyptian — after  the  conquest — after  the 
glorious  son  had  returned  to  engraft  his  own  develop 
ment  upon  the  glorious  sire.  It  was  the  tree  in  flower, 
transplanted.  No  Howadji  denies  that  the  seed  was 
Egyptian,  but  poet  Martineau  perpetually  reviles  .  the 
Greeks  for  their  audacity  in  coming  to  Egypt,  can  with 
difficulty  contain  her  dissatisfaction  at  pausing  to  see  the 
Ptolemaic  remains,  finds  that  word  sufficient  description 
and  condemnation.  But  the  Greeks,  notwithstanding,  rarely 
spoiled  any  thing  they  touched,  and  here  in  Egypt,  they 
inoculated  massiveness  with  grace,  and  grandeur  with 
beauty.  Of  course  there  was  always  something  lost.  An 
Egyptian  temple  built  by  Greek-taught  natives,  or  by 
Greeks  who  wished  to  compromise  a  thousand  JBalousies 
and  prejudices,  must,  like  all  other  architecture,  be  em 
blematical  of  the  spirit  of  the  time  and  of  the  people.  Yet 
in  gaining  grace,  the  Howadji  is  not  disposed  to  think  that 


216  NILE   NOTES. 


Egyptian  architecture  lost  much  of  its  grandeur.  The 
rock  temples,  or  the  eldest  Egyptian  remains,  have  all  the 
imposing  interest  of  the  might  and  character  of  primitive 
races  grandly  developing  in  art  But  as  the  art  advances 
to  separate  structures  and  slowly  casts  away  a  crust  of 
crudities,  although  it  <may  lose  in  solid  weight,  it  gains  in 
every  other  way. 

Then  the  perfection  of  any  art  is  always  unobtrusive. 
Yes,  in  a  sense,  unimpressive,  as  the  most  exquisite  of  sum 
mer  days,  so  breathes  balm  into  a  vigorous  and  healthy 
body,  that  the  individual  exists  without  corporeal  con 
sciousness,  yet  is  then  most  corporeally  perfect.  In  the 
same  way  disproportion  arrests  the  attention.  Beauti 
ful  balance,  which  is  the  character  of  perfection  in  art  or 
human  character  or  nature,  allows  no  prominent  points. 
"Washington  is  undoubtedly  always  underrated  in  our  judg 
ments,  because  he  was  so  well  proportioned  ;  and  the  finest 
musical  performance  has  such  natural  ease  and  quiet,  and 
the  colors  and  treatment  of  a  fine  picture  such  propriety 
and  harmony,  that  we  do  not  at  once  know  how  fine  it  is. 
It  is  the  cutting  of  a  razor  so  sharply  edged  that  we  are 
not  conscious  of  it.  "We  have  all  seen  the  same  thing  in 
beautiful  faces.  The  most  permanent  and  profound  beauty 
did  not  thrill  us,  but  presently,  like  air  to  the  lungs,  it  was 
a  necessity  of  inner  life,  while  the  striking  beauty  is  gen 
erally  a  disproportion,  and  so  far,  a  monstrosity  and  fault. 
Men  who  feel  beauty  most  profoundly,  are  often  unable  to 
recall  the  color  of  eyes  and  hair,  unless,  as  with  artists, 
there  is  an  involuntary  technical  attention  to  those  points. 


NOKTHWARD.  217 


For  beauty  is  a  radiance  that  can  not  be  analyzed,  and 
which  is  not  described  when  you  call  it  rosy.  Wanting  any 
word  which  shall  express  it,  is  not  the  highest  beauty  the 
synonym  of  balance,  for  the  highest  thought  is  God,  and 
he  is  passionlessly  balanced  in  our  conception. 
4^''t  This  is  singularly  true  in  architecture.  The  Greek 
nature  was  the  most  purely  proportioned  of  any  that  we 
know — and  this  beautiful  balance  breathes  its  character 
through  all  Greek  art.  The  Greeks  were  as  much  the 
masters  of  their  world,  physically,  and  infinitely  more, 
intellectually,  than  the  Romans  were  of  theirs.  And  it  is 
suspected  that  the  Greek  element  blending  with  the  Saxon, 
makes  us  the  men  we  are.  Yet  the  single  Roman  always 
appears  in  our  imaginations  as  stronger,  .because  more 
stalwart,  than  the  Greek — and  the  elder  Egyptian  archi 
tecture  seems  grander,  because  heavier  than  the  Grecian. 
It  is  a  kind  of  material  deception — the  triumph  of  gross 
sense.  It  is  the  old  story  of  Richard  and  Salah-ed-deen. 

The  grace  of  the  Greek  character,  both  humanly  and 
artistically,  was  not  a  want  of  strength,  but  it  was .  ex 
quisite  balance.  Grace  in  character,  as  in  movement,  is 
the  last  delicate  flower,  the  most  bloomy  bloom.  The 
grandeur  of  mountain  outlines — their  poetic  sentiment- — 
the  exquisite  hues,  that  flash  along  their  sides,  are  not 
truly  known  until  you  have  so  related  them  to  the  whole 
landscape,  by  separating  yourself  from,  them,  that  this 
balance  can  appear.  "While  you  climb  the  mountain,  and 
behold  one  detail  swift  swallowing  another — though  the 
abysses  are  grand,  and  the  dead  trunks  titanic,  and  the 

K 


218  NILE   NOTES. 


single  flower  exquisite,  yet  the  mass  has  no  form  and  no 
hue,  and  only  the  details  have  character. 

Beauty  is  reached  in  the  same  way  in  art.  If  parts  are 
exaggerated,  striking  impressions  may  be  produced,  but 
the  best  beauty  is  lost.  The  early  Egyptian  architecture 
is  exaggeratedly  heavy.  The  whole  art,  in  its  feeling  and 
form,  seems  to  symbolize  foundation — as  if  it  were  to  bear 
all  the  finer  and  farther  architectures  of  the  world  upon 
itself.  It  is  massive  and  heavy  and  permanent,  but  not 
graceful.  The  beholder  brings  away  this  ponderous  im 
pression — nothing  seems  massive  to  him  after  Egypt,  as 
nothing  seems  clean  after  a  Shaker  village,  and  if  upon  the 
shore  something  lighter  and  more  graceful  arrest  his  eye, 
he  is  sure  that  it  is  a  decadence  of  art.  For  so  impressively 
put  is  this  massiveness  of  structure,  that  it  seems  the 
only  rule,  and  he  will  hear  of  no  others — as  a  man  return 
ing  from  a  discourse  of  one  idea,  eloquently  and  fervidly 
set  forth,  believes  in  that,  mainly,  until  he  hears  another 
fervid  argument. 

But  the  Greeks  achieved  something  loftier.  They 
harmonized  strength  into  beauty,  and  therein  secured  the 
highest  success  of  art — the  beautifying  of  use.  Nothing  in 
nature  is  purely  ornamental,  and  therefore  nothing  in  art 
has  a  right  to  be.  Greek  architecture  sacrifices  none  of 
fhe  strength  of  the  Egyptian,  if  we  may  trust  the  most 
careful  and  accurate  engravings,  but  elevates  it.  It  is 
the  proper  superstructure  of  that  foundation.  It  is  aerial 
and  light  and  delicate.  Probably,  on  the  whole,  a  Greek 
temple  charms  the  eye  more  than  any  other  single  object 


NORTHWARD.  219 


of  art.  It  is  serene  and  beautiful.  The  grace  of  the  sky 
and  of  the  landscape  would  seem  to  have  been  perpetually 
present  in  the  artist's  mind  who  designed  it.  This  archi 
tecture  has  also  the  smiling  simplicity,  which  is  the 
characteristic  of  all  youth — while  the  African  has  a  kind 
of  dumb,  ante-living,  ante-sunlight  character,  like  that  of 
an  embryo  Titan. 

When  the  Greeks  came  to  Egypt,  they  brought  Greece 
with  them,  and  the  last  living  traces  of  antique  Egypt 
began  to  disappear.  They  even  changed  the  names  of 
cities,  and  meddled  with  the  theology,  and  in  art  the 
Greek  genius  was  soon  evident — yet  as  blending  and 
beautifying,  not  destroying — and  the  Ptolemaic  temples, 
while  they  have  not  lost  the  massive  grandeur  of  the 
Pharaohnic,  have  gained  a  greater  grace.  A  finer  feeling  is 
apparent  in  them — a  lighter  and  more  genial  touch — a 
lyrical  sentiment  which  does  not  appear  in  the  dumb  old 
epics  of  Aboo  Simbel,  and  of  G-erf  Hoseyn.  They  have  an 
air  of  flowers,  and  freshness,  and  human  feeling.  They  are 
sculptured  with  the  same  angular  heroes,  and  gods,  and 
victims,  but  while  these  are  not  so  well  done  as  in  the 
elder  temples,  and  indicate  that  the  Egyptians  themselves 
were  degenerate  in  the  art,  or  that  the  Greeks  who  attained 
the  same  result  of  mural  commemoration  in  a  loftier 
manner  at  home,  did  it  clumsily  in  Egypt — the  general 
effect  and  character  of  the  temples  is  much  more  beautiful 
to  the  eye.  The  curious  details  begin  to  yield  to  the  com 
plete  whole — a  gayer,  more  cultivated,  farther  advanced 
race  has  entered  and  occupied. 


220  NILE    NOTES. 


The  Howadji  will  check  himself  here,  as  he  stumbles 
over  a  fallen  hieroglyphed  column  in  the  moonlight.  But 
this  temple  of  Dekkar  was  a  proper  place  to  say  so  much 
for  the  abused  temples  of  Ptolemaic  times ;  for  this  is  a 
building  of  Ergamun,  an  Ethiopian  prince,  and  a  neighbor 
of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  who  had  seen  Greece  and  learned 
a  little  wisdom,  and  made  a  stand  in  a  temple,  probably  on 
this  very  site,  against  the  ignorant  tyranny  of  priests,  not 
supposing,  as  Sir  Gardiner  aptly  remarks,  "  that  belief  in 
the  priests  signified  belief  in  the  Gods,  whom  he  failed  not 
to  honor  with  due  respect." 

Sir  Gardiner  quotes  the  story  from  Diodorus,  that  "  the 
most  extraordinary  thing  is  what  relates  to  the  death  of  their 
kings.  The  priests,  who  superintend  the  worship  of  the 
Gods  and  the  ceremonies  of  religion,  in  Meroe,  enjoy  such 
unlimited  power,  that  whenever  they  choose  they  send  a 
messenger  to  the  king,  ordering  him  to  die,  for  that  the  Gods 
had  given  this  command,  and  no  mortal  could  oppose  their 
will,  without  being  guilty  of  a  crime.  They  also  add  other 
reasons,  which  would  influence  a  man  of  weak  mind,  ac 
customed  to  give  way  to  old  custom  and  prejudice,  and  with 
out  sufficient  sense  to  oppose  such  unreasonable  commands- 
In  former  times,  the  kings  had  obeyed  the  priests,  not  by  com 
pulsion,  but  out  of  mere  superstition,  until  Ergamenes,  who 
ascended  the  throne  of  Ethiopia,  in  the  time  of  the  second 
Ptolemy,  a  man  instructed  in  the  sciences  and  philosophy 
of  Greece,  was  bold  enough  to  defy  their  orders.  And  having 
made  a  resolution  worthy  of  a  prince,  he  repaired  with  his 
troops  to  a  fortress,  or  high  place,  where  a  golden  temple  of 


NORTHWARD.  221 


the  Ethiopians  stood,  and  there  having  slain  all  the  priests, 
he  abolished  the  ancient  custom,  and  substituted  other  in 
stitutions,  according  to  his  own  will."  • 

We  may  thank  Greece  possibly  for  that.  Yet  that  we 
may  enjoy  the  satisfaction  of  making  ourselves  cotemporary 
with  such  histories,  let  us  refer  to  Frederic  Werne's  White 
Nile,  and  discover  that  races,  neighbors  of  our  tree-worship 
ing  friends,  the  Dinkas,  if  not  sometimes  our  very  friends 
themselves,  continue  this  habit,  and  allow  the  priests  to  no 
tify  the  kings  to  die.  As  yet  has  arisen  no  Dinka  Ergamun. 
But  such  always  do  arise — some  Ergamun  or  Luther  or 
Strauss,  and  protest  with  blood  or  books  against  the  priests, 
although  tree-worshiping  Dinkas,  who  unthrone  their  king 
on  a  three-legged  stool,  may  plead  the  South^  and  so  stand 
absolved  from  this  duty. 

Muse  a  moment  longer  in  these  moonlight  ruins,  and 
observing  brave  King  Ergamun  hieroglyphed  (say  the 
learned)  "  king  of  men,  the  hand  of  Amun,  the  living,  cho 
sen  of  Re,  son  of  the  sun,  Ergamun  ever-living,  the  beloved 
of  Isis  ;"  let  the  faint  figures  of  those  elders  pass  by  and 
perceive  that  you  honor  them,  though  you  do  think  the 
Greek  architecture  more  beautiful.  The  glare  of  Seyd's 
torch  reveals  upon  these  walls  figures  and  a  faith  that  is 
not  less  dear  to  the  Howadji,  as  history,  than  any  other. 
But  the  forms  fade  in  the  misty  moonlight,  as  their  names 
are  fading  out  of  history.  Perhaps,  after  all,  Mohammad 
Alee  was  as  good  and  glorious  as  Ramses  the  Great,  whom 
the  Greeks  called  Sesostris,  or  any  of  the  Thothmes. 

Who  knows? — perhaps  they  were. 


222  NILE   NOTES. 


Harriet  Martineau,  indeed,  and  the  other  poetical  Ho- 
wadji,  are  inclined  to  doubt  whether  there  were  any  wry 
necks  or  squint-eyes  in  those  days  of  giants,  and  you  can 
not  say  yea  or  nay,  for  the  great  darkness. 

Who  knows?  perhaps  there  were  not. 

Grreat  they  clearly  were,  for  they  built  these  temples  and 
graved  the  walls  with  their  own  glory.  But  they  have  the 
advantage  of  the  dark,  while  Mohammad  Alee  and  Julius 
Ceesar  stand  in  the  broad  daylight  with  all  their  wrinkles. 
Besides,  when  men  have  been  dead  a  few  thousand  years, 
if  their  names  escape  to  us  across  the  great  gulf  of  Time, 
it  is  only  decent  to  take  them  in  and  entertain  them  kindly; 
especially  is  it  becoming  to  those  Howadji  who  sail  their  river 
along  the  shores  they  so  ponderously  piled  with  grandeur. 

But  the  Ptolemies,  as  well.  Luxor,  Dendereh,  Edfoo, 
Kum  Ombos,  Philae,  and  the  temples  at  Karnak — these  are 
part  of  Egypt.  0  poetic  and  antiquity- adoring  Howadji, 
this  jealousy  of  the  Greeks  is  sadly  unpoetic.  Look  at  this 
little  Dekkar  temple  and  confess  it.  Remember  Philae  and 
ask  forgiveness.  Why  love  the  Ptolemies  less,  because  you 
love  the  Pharaohs  more  ?  Spite  of  Yolney  and  this  Nu 
bian  moonlight,  itself  a  rich  reward  of  long  voyaging,  the 
Howadji  will  not  be  sad  and  solemn  about  the  Egyptians, 
because  they  were  a  great  people  and  are  gone.  The 
Greeks  had  a  much  finer  architecture,  and  a  much  more 
graceful  nature — they  were  not  so  old  as  these.  But  there 
were  elder  than  the  Egyptians,  and  wiser  and  fairer,  even 
the  sons  of  the  morning,  for  heaven  lies  around  the  world 
in  its  infancy,  as  well  as  around  us. 


NORTHWARD.  223 


The  Howadji  left  the  little  temple  to  the  moonlight  arid 
the  jackals.  The  village  was  startled  from  sleep  again  by 
our  return,  and  the  crew  were  sleeping  upon  the  deck; 
but  in  a  few  moments  there  was  no  more  noise,  and  the 
junk  was  floating  down  in  the  moonlight,  while  its  choicer 
freight  was  clouded  in  the  azure  mist  of  Latakia,  and  heard 
only  the  Sakias  and  the  throbbing  oars  and  at  times  the 
wild,  satanic  rowing-song  of  the  men,  which  Satan  Saleh 
led  with  his  diabolical  quaver  and  cry. 

Yet  when  another  day  had  burnt  away,  the  same 
moonlight  showed  us  Kalab-sheh,  the  largest  l^ubian  ruin. 
It  is  directly  upon  the  tropic,  which  makes  it  pleasant  to 
the  imagination,  but  is  a  mass  of  uninteresting  rubbish  of 
Roman  days.  For  the  Howadji  will  not  plead  for  Roman 
remains  in  Egypt,  which  have  no  more  character  than  Ro 
man  art  elsewhere ;  and  Roman  art  in  Baalbec,  in  Egypt 
and  in  Italy,  is  only  Grecian  art  thickened  from  poetry 
into  prose.  It  is  one  vast  imitation,  and  the  essential  char 
acter  is  forever  lost.  But  close  by  is  a  small  rock  temple  of 
the  "  golden  prime"  of  Ramses  the  Great,  and  passing  the 
animated  sculptures,  and  entering,  the  Howadji  stands  be 
tween  two  Doric  columns.  They  are  fluted,  and  except 
that  they  are  low,  like  foundation  columns,  have  all  the 
grace  of  the  Greek  Doric.  These  columns  occur  once  more 
near  Minyeh,  in  Egypt,  at  the  caves  or  tombs  of  Beni  Has 
san,  and  are  there  quite  as  perfect  as  in  any  Grecian  temple. 
In  this  moonlight,  upon  the  very  tropic,  that  fact  looms 
very  significantly  upon  the  Howadji's  mind.  But  how 
can  he  indulge  speculation,  or  reach  conclusions,  while 


224  NILE    NOTES. 


Saleh  who  bears  the  torch  crate  is  perpetually  drawing  his 
attention  to  the  walls,  on  which  are  sculptured  processions 
bearing  offerings  to  great  Ramses  who  built  this  temple, 
and  who  seems  to  have  done  every  thing  else  in  Egypt 
Tintil  the  Ptolemies  came  ?  There  are  rings  and  bags  of 
gold,  leopard-skins,  ostrich-eggs,  huge  fans,  and  beasts, 
lions,  gazelles,  oxen,  then  plants  and  skins.  A  historical 
sketch  occupies  another  wall-— the  great  Ramses,  repre 
sented  as  three  times  the  size  of  his  foes,  pursuing  them 
into  perdition.  *  There  is  a  little  touch  of  a  wounded  man 
taken  home  by  his  comrades,  while  a  little  one  runs  to 
"  announce  the  sad  news  to  its  mother,"  pathetically  says 
Sir  G-ardiner,  speaking  of  sculptures  that,  to  the  Howadji's 
eye,  have  no  more  human  interest  or  tenderness,  or  variety 
of  expression,  than  the  chance  forms  of  clouds  or  foliage. 

But  the  Nubian  days  were  ending,  and  the  great  gate 
of  the  cataract  was  already  audible,  roaring  as  it  turned. 
Hassan  piloted  us  safely  through  the  half-cataracts,  and  the 
fantastic  rock  vistas  about  Philse  were  already  around  us. 
Beautiful  in  the  mild  morning  stood  the  holy  island,  full 
of  fairy  figures  that  came  and  went,  and  looked  and  lin 
gered — Ariel-beauties  among  the  Caliban  grotesqueness 
of  the  pass.  It  was  the  vision  of  a  moment  only,  scarcely 
more  distinct  than  in  memory,  and  the  next  we  were 
pausing  at  Mahratta,  where  the  Reis  of  the  Cataract,  by 
the  terms  of  the  Treaty,  was  bound  to  pilot  the  boat  back 
again  to  Syene. 


xxxni. 

.       '  **  J  %-  -.        V- 

-v         •"     i    :  •  .    •  : 


•J 


i\i  (Prun  nf 


IT  was  a  bright,  sparkling  morning,  and  all  the  people 
of  Mahratta  seemed  to  be  grouped  upon  the  shore  to  re 
ceive  with  staring  wonder  the  boat  that  had  undergone 
in  itself  the  Pythagorean  Metempsychosis  taught  by  the  old 
teachers  at  neighboring  Philae  —  the  boat  that  had  flown 
southward  a  wide-  winged  Ibis,  and  floated  slowly  back 
again  a  cumbrous  junk  —  a  swift  bird  no  longer,  but  a 
heavy  bug  rather,  sprawling  upon  the  water  with  the  long 
clumsy  oars  for  its  legs.  There  were  two  or  three  slave 
boats  at  Mahratta  —  although  we  had  passed  scarce  a  sail 
in  lonely  Nubia.  The  brisk,  busy  shore  was  like  awaking 
again  after  a  long  sleep  —  yet,  believe  me,  it  was  only  as 
one  seems  to  awake,  in  dreams.  For  the  spell  was  not  dis 
solved  at  Mahratta  —  nor  yet  at  Cairo  —  and  if  -at  Beyrout 
to  the  eye,  yet  it  still  thralls  the  mind  and  memory. 

The  Captain  of  the  Cataract  was  absent,  piloting  an 
English  Howadji  through  the  rapids,  but  his  lieutenant 
and  substitute,  one  of  the  minor  captains,  and  our  former 
friend  of  the  kurbash,  were  grinning  gayly  as  we  drove 
smoothly  up  to  the  bank  —  the  latter  touching  up  a  dusky 
neighbor  occasionally  with  his  instrument,  in  the  exuber- 

K* 


226  NILE   NOTES. 


ance  of  his  delighted  expectation  of  incessant  kurbashing 
for  a  brace  of  hours,  on  our  way  to  Syene.  The  motley 
crowd  tumbled  aboard.  As  at  Syene,  our  own  crew  became 
luxuriously  superfluous — for  a  morning  they  were  as  in 
dolent  as  the  Howadji,  and  tasted  for  that  brief  space  the 
delight  which  was  perpetual  in  the  blue  cabin.  For  it  is 
a  sorrow  and  shame  to  do  any  thing  upon  the  Nile  or  in 
Egypt  but  float,  fascinated,  and  let  the  landscape  be  your 
mind  and  imagination,  full  of  poetic  forms.  An  Egyptian 
always  works  as  if  he  were  on  the  point  of  pausing,  and 
regarded  labor  as  an  unlovely  incident  of  the  day.  The 
only  natural  position  of  an  Eastern  is  sitting  or  reclining. 
But  these  Nile  sailors  sit  upon  their  haunches,  or  inelegantly 
squat  like  the  vases  that  stand  in  the  tombs,  and  with 
as  much  sense  of  life  as  they.  The  moment  a  man  becomes 
inactive  upon  the  shore,  he  is  enchanted  into  a  permanent 
figure  of  the  landscape.  The  silence  enchants  him,  and 
makes  his  repose  so  profound  and  lifeless,  that  it  deepens 
the  impression'  of  silence.  But  the  dusky  denizens  of 
Mahratta  leaped  and  scrambled  upon  the  boat,  like  impatient 
souls  very  dubious  of  safe  ferryage — for  returning  to  the 
Cataract  confusion,  we  return  to  our  old  similitudes.  Si 
lence,  too,  shuddered,  as  they  rushed  yelping  upon  the 
junk,  as  if  its  very  soul  had  gone  out  of  it  forever ;  and 
piling  themselves  upon  the  deck  and  the  bulwarks,  and 
seizing  the  huge,  cumbrous  oars,  they  commenced,  under 
brisk  kurbashing,  to  push  from  the  shore,  quarreling  and 
shouting,  and  mad  with  glee  and  excitement,  in  entire 
insanity  of  the  "  savage  faculty," 


BY    THE    GRACE    OF    GOIX  227 

The  Howadji  stood  at  the  blue  ^ cabin  door,  helpless — 
perhaps  hopeless,  in  the  grim  chaos,  and  turning  backward, 
as  the  boat  slid  from  the  shore  upon  the  glassy  stream, 
beheld  Nubia  and  the  farther  South  faint  away  upon  the 
rosy  bosorn  of  the  morning. 

The  day  was  beautiful  and  windless — the  air  clear  arid 
brilliant.  No  wind  could  have  benefited  us — so  tortuous 
is  the  channel  through  these  rapids;  and  once  fairly  into 
the  midst  of  the  river,  its  strong  swift  stream,  eddying 
toward  the  cataract,  swept  us  on  to  the  frowning  battle 
ments  of  rock  that  rise  along  the  rapid.  The  oars  dipped 
slightly — but  another  power  than  theirs,  an  impetus  from 
what  bewitched  fountain  in  the  most  glorious  glen  of  the 
Mountains  of  the  Moon,  shoved  us  on — the  speed,  the  near- 
ing  rapid,  the  exhilarating  morning,  making  this  the  most 
exciting  day  of  the  Nile  voyaging.  The  men  tugging  by 
threes  and  fours  at  the  oars,  laughed  and  looked  at  the 
Howadji — their  backs  turned  to  the  rapid,  and  mainly  in 
tent  upon  the  kurbash  which  was  frenziedly  fulfilling  its 
functions.  The  pilot,  whose  eyes  were  fixed  fast  and 
firmly  upon  the  rock  points  and  the  boat's  prow,  shouted 
them]  suddenly  into  silence  at  times — but  only  for  a  mo 
ment,  then  again  like  eager,  fun-overflowing  boys  they 
prattled  and  played  away. 

In  twenty  minutes  from  Mahratta  we  were  close  upon 
the  first  and  longest  and  swiftest  rapid.  The  channel  was 
partly  cut  away  by  Mohammad  Alee,  and  although  it  con 
ceals  na  rocks,  it  is  so  very  narrow,  and  shows  such 
ragged,  jagged  cliff  sides  to  the  stream,  that  with  a  large 


228  NILE    NOTES. 


Dahabieh  like  ours,  driving  through  the  gurgling,  foaming 
and  fateful  dark  waters — it  is  a  bit  of  adventure  and 
experience  to  have  passed. 

The  instant  that  the  strange  speed  with  which  we 
swept  along,  indicated  that  the  junk  was  sliding  down 
the  horizontal  cataract,  and  the  Dahabieh  and  Howadji 
and  crew  felt  as  chips  look,  plunging  over  water-falls 
resistless,  and  entirely  mastered,  driving  dreadfully  for 
ward  like  a  tempest-tortured  ship — that  moment,  the  pilot 
thundered  caution  from  the  tiller,  and  a  confused  scram 
bling  ensued  upon  deck  to  take  in  the  oars,  for  it  was  not 
possible  for  us  to  pass  with  such  wide-stretching  arms 
through  the  narrow  throat  of  the  rapid.  But  there  was  no 
instant  to  lose.  The  river,  like  a  live  monster,  plunged 
along  with  us  upon  his  back.  "We  too  felt  his  eager  motions 
under  us — a  swiftness  of  smooth  undulation  along  which 
we  rode ;  and  so  startling  was  the  new  sudden  speed,  when 
we  were  once  on  the  currenty  slope,  that  it  seemed  as  if 
our  monster  were  dashing  on  to  plunge  us  wrecked  against 
the  bristling  sides,  before  we  could  take  in  our  arm-like 
oars,  that,  rigid  with  horrible  expectation,  reached  stiffly 
out  toward  their  destruction. 

But  vainly  struggled  and  stumbled  the  "  savage  fac 
ulty."  It  was  clear  enough  that  the  junk  was  Fate's  and 
Fate's  only.  At  the  same  instant  the  Howadji  saw  and 
felt  that  before  one  reluctant  oar,  which  was  tied  and 
tangled  inextricably,  could  be  hauled  in,  its  blade  would 
strike  a  rocky  reach  that  stretched  forth  for  it  into  the 
stream — which  foamed  and  fretted  at  the  momentary  ob- 


BY   THE    GRACE    OF    GOD.  229 

struction,  then  madly  eddied  forward.  But  in  striking  the 
rock  the  oar  would  throw  the  boat  with  its  broadside  to  the 
stream,  capsize  it,  and  send  Howadji,  crew,  and  Mahratta 
savages  beyond  kurbashing. 

They  saw  this  at  the  same  instant,  and  the  whole 
boat's  company  saw  it  too,  and  the  pilot,  who  shouted  like 
one  mad,  yet  who  was  fixed  fast  to  his  post,  for  a  single 
swerve  of  the  rudder  would  be  as  fatal  as  the  oar  against 
the  rock.  The  kurbash  raged  and  fell  and  flourished,  as 
if  it  foresaw  the  speedy  end  of  its  exercise  and  authority, 
and  burned  to  use  up  all  its  vitality.  But  the  mental 
chaos  of  the  men  of  Mahratta  was  only  more  chaotic  in  this 
juncture,  and  while  the  oar  still  stretched  to  its  fate,  and 
like  a  mote  upon  a  lightning  flash,  the  frightfully  steady 
boat  darted  through  the  rapid,  the  Pacha  grasped  one  col 
umn  of  the  cabin  porch,  and  the  other  Howadji  the  other, 
awaiting  the  crisis  which  should  throw  them  into  the 
jaws  of  the  monster,  who  would  dash  them  high  up 
upon  the  shore  below,  to  consume  at  leisure. 

All  this  was  seen  and  transpired  in  less  time  than  you 
occupy  in  reading  the  record.  The  pilot  in  vain  endeav 
ored  to  ease  her  from  the  side  toward  which  she  was  tend 
ing,  and  on  which  still  and  hopelessly  stretched  the  fatal 
oar.  There  was  universal  silence  and  expectation,  and 
then  crash!  struck  the  oar  against  the  rock,  was  com 
pletely  shivered  in  striking,  and  the  heavy  junk,  shudder 
ing  a  moment,  but  scarce  consciously,  and  not  swerving 
from  her  desperate  way,  darted  forward  still,  and  drove 
high  upon  the  sandy  shore,  at  the  sudden  turning  of  the 


230  NILE   NOTES. 


rapid,  and  the  Howadji  had  safely  passed  the  most  appal 
ling  slope  of  the  cataract. 

Chaos  came  again  immediately.  The  pilot  descended 
from  his  post,  and  expressed  his  opinion  that  such  accurate 
and  able  pilotage  deserved  an  extraordinary  bucksheesh, 
implying,  with  ethics  not  alone  oriental,  that  having  done 
his  duty,  he  was  entitled  to  more  than  praise.  The  men 
of  Mahratta  smiled  significantly  at  the  Howadji,  as  if  such 
remarkable  exertions  as  theirs  were  possibly  hardly  to 
be  measured  by  merely  infidel  minds,  and  there  was  a 
general  air  of  self-satisfaction  pervading  all  faces,  as  if  the 
savage  faculty,  and  not  the  grace  of  Grod,  had  brought  us 
through  the  cataract. 

We  tarried  a  little  while  upon  the  shore,  and  then 
glided  again  down  the  swift  stream.  It  was  only  swift 
now,  not  startling,  and  the  rockiness  was  farther  with 
drawn,  and  there  were  smooth  reaches  of  water.  We  saw 
several  Howadji  loitering  upon  a  sandy  slope.  The  sun 
seemed  not  to  sparkle,  as  before  the  descent,  in  the  excite 
ment  of  the  morning,  and  there  was  the  same  old  sunny 
tranquillity  of  Egypt  breathing  over  the  dying  rages  and 
up  through  the  rocky  ways  of  the  cataract.  It  was  the 
lull  and  repose  that  follow  intense  excitement,  and  of  so 
suggestive  a  character,  that  the  Howadji  recalled  with 
sympathy  the  aerial  Aquarelle  of  Turner — the  summit  of 
the  Grotthard  Pass,  looking  toward  Italy.  It  is  a  wonder 
ful  success  of  art,  for  in  the  warmth  and  depth  and  variety 
of  the  hue,  which  has  the  infinite  rarity  and  delicacy  of 
Italian  air,  and  which  seems  rather  a  glow  and  rosy  suf- 


BY    THE    GRACE   QF    GOD.  231 

fusion  than  a  material  medium — in  that  and  through  that, 
the  bloom  of  Italy  breathes  warm  beauty  far  into  Switzer 
land,  and  steeps  the  spectator  in  the  South.  The  eye 
clings  to  it  and  bathes  in  it  as  the  soul  and  memory  in 
Italian  days.  So  in  the  tender  tranquillity  of  that  morn 
ing  succeeding  the  rapids,  all  the  golden  greenness  and 
sweet  silence  of  Egypt  below  Syene,  breathed  beauty  and 
balm  over  what  was  the  Ibis.  How  few  things  are  singly 
beautiful !  Is  there  any  single  beauty  ?  For  all  beauty 
seems  to  adorn  itself  with  all  other  beauty,  and  while  the 
lover's  mistress  is  only  herself,  she  has  all  the  beauty  of 
all  beautiful  women. 

Thus  with  songs  singing  in  their  minds,  came  the 
Howadji  swiftly  to  Syene.  The  current  bore  us  graciously 
along,  like  the  genii  that  serve  gracefully  when  once  their 
pride  and  rage  is  conquered.  The  struggle  and  crisis  of 
the  morning  only  bound  us  more  nearly  to  the  river.  0 
blue-spectacled  Gunning  !  the  dream-languor  of  our  river 
is  not  passionless  sloth,  but  the  profundity  of  passion.  And 
I  pray  Athor,  the  Queen  of  the  "West,  and  the  Lady  of 
Lovers,  that  so  may  be  charactered  the  many  winding 
courses  of  your  life. 

But  Verde  Griovane  and  (running  had  flown  northward 
toward  Thebes,  leaving  only  miraculous  memories  of  a  de- 
ieuner  at  Philse,  upon  men's  minds  in  Syene,  and  strange 
relics  of  bones  and  fruit-skins  upon  the  temple  ruins.  Beam 
ing  elderly  John  Bull  was  also  flown,  and  with  him  Mrs. 
Bull,  doubtlessly  still  insisting  that  the  Kaftan  was  a  night 
gown.  And  Wines  and  the  Irish  Doctor  who  plunged  into 


232  NILE   NOTES. 


the  Nile  mystery  at  Alexandria,  were  also  gone.  They  were 
all  off  toward  Thebes.  But  Nero  was  still  deep  in  Nubia, 
solemnly  cursing  contrary  winds,  while  Nera,  quietly  repos 
ing  in  the  sumptuous  little  cabin,  shed  the  lovely  light  of  a 
new  thought  of  woman  like  a  delicate  dawn  upon  the  dusky 
mental  night  of  the  "  Kid's"  crew.  Far  under  Aboo  Sim- 
bel,  too,  fluttered  the  blue  pennant,  still  streaming  back 
ward  to  the  south,  whither  it  had  pointed.  The  English 
consul's  Dahabieh,  a  floating  palace  of  delights,  was  at 
Syene,  and  the  leisure  barque  of  an  artist,  whose  pencil, 
long  dipped  in  the  sunshine  of  the  East,  will  one  day  mag 
ically  evoke  for  us  the  great  dream  of  the  Nile.  But  we 
lingered  long  enough  only  to  buy  some  bread,  and  as  the 
full  moon  goldened  the  palm  fringe  of  the  river,  the  little 
feline  Reis,  happy  to  be  in  command  once  more,  thrummed 
the  long  silent  tarabuka,  and  with  clapping  hands  and 
long,  lingering,  sonorous  singing,  the  boat  drifted  slowly 
down  the  river. 


•     .      - 

"-••'•       •'     •    •-. "">.<'# 


XXXIV. 

•  ': 


BUT  while  the  Ibis  flies  no  longer,  but  floats,  a  junk,  and 
for  the  Howadji  has  forever  furled  her  wings,  they  step  ashore 
ast  he  boat  glides  idly  along,  and  run  up  among  the  mud  cab 
ins  and  the  palm-groves.  They  were  always  the  same  thing, 
like  the  lay-figure  of  an  artist,  which  he  drapes  and  disgui 
ses,  and  makes  exhaustlessly  beautiful  with  color  and  form. 
So  the  day,  with  varying  lights  and  differing  settings  of 
the  same  relief,  made  endless  picture  of  the  old  material. 
You  are  astonished  that  you  do  not  find  the  Nile  monoto 
nous.  Palms,  shores  and  hills,  hills,  shores  and  palms,  and 
ever  the  old  picturesqueness  of  costume,  yet  fresh  and 
beautiful  every  day  as  the  moon  every  month,  and  the 
stars  each  evening.  This  is  not  to  be  explained  by  novelty, 
but  by  the  essential  beauty  of  the  objects.  Those  objects  are 
shapeless  mud  huts  for  instance,  0  Reverend  Dr.  Duck,  voy 
aging  upon  the  Nile  with  Mrs.  Duck  for  the  balm  of  the  Af 
rican  breath,  and  finding  the  scenery  sadly  monotonous.  But 
birds  can  not  sing  until  the  pie  is  opened,  0  Doctor,  nor  can 
eyes  see,  until  all  films  are  removed.  Yet  stretching  your 
head  a  little  upward,  as  we  sit  upon  this  grass  clump  on  the 


234  NILE    NOTES. 


high  bank  of  the  river,  you  shall  see  something  that  will 
make  Egypt  always  memorable  to  you.  For,  as  we  sat 
there  one  morning,  we  saw  a  dark,  undulating  mass  upon 
the  edge  of  the  fog  bank  that  was  slowly  rolling  northward 
away.  I  thought  it  a  flight  of  pigeons,  but  the  Pacha 
said  that  it  did  not  move  like  pigeons. 

The  mass,  now  evidently  a  flight  of  birds,  came  sweep 
ing  southward  toward  us,  high  in  the  blue  air  and  veering 
from  side  to  side  like  a  ship  in  tacking.  "With  every  sun 
ward  sweep,  their  snow-white  bodies  shone  like  a  shower 
of  most  silver  stars,  or  rather,  to  compare  large  things 
with  small,  if  Bacchus  will  forgive,  they  floated  suspended 
in  the  blue  air  like  flakes  of  silver,  as  the  gold  flakes  hang 
in  a  vessel  of  eau  de  Dantzic. 

There  was  a  graceful,  careless  order  in  their  flying, 
and  as  they  turned  from  side  to  side,  the  long  lines  undu 
lated  in  musical  motion.  I  have  never  seen  movement 
so  delicious  to  the  eye  as  their  turning  sweep.  The  long 
line  throbbed  and  palpitated  as  if  an  electric  sympathy 
was  emitted  from  the  pure  points  of  their  wings.  There 
was  nothing  tumbling  or  gay  in  their  impression,  but 
an  intense  feeling  of  languid  life.  Their  curves  and 
movements  were  voluptuous.  The  southern  sun  flashed 
not  in  vain  along  their  snowiness,  nor  were  they,  without 
meaning,  flying  to  the  south.  There  was  no  sound  but 
the  whirring  of  innumerable  wings,  as  they  passed  high 
over  our  heads,  a  living  cloud  between  us  and  the  sun. 
Now  it  was  a  streaming  whiteness  in  the  blue,  now  it  was 
as  mellowly  dark,  as  they  turned  to  or  from  the  sun, 


FLAMINGOES.  235 


and  so  advanced,  the  long  lines  giving  and  trembling  some 
times,  like  a  flapping  sail  in  a  falling  breeze,  then  belly- 
ing  roundly  out  again,  as  if  the  wind  had  risen.  "When 
they  were  directly  above  us,  one  only  note  was  dropped 
from  some  thoughtful  flamingo,  to  call  attention  to  the 
presence  of  strangers  below.  But  beyond  musket-shot, 
even  if  not  beyond  fear,  as  they  undoubtedly  were,  the 
fair  company  swept  on  unheeding — a  beautiful  boon  for  the 
south,  and  laden  with  what  strange  tidings  from  northern 
woods !  The  bodies  were  rosy  white  and  the  wings  black, 
and  the  character  of  their  flight  imparted  an  air  of  delicacy 
and  grace  to  all  association  with  the  birds,  so  that  it  is 
natural  and  pleasant  to  find  that  Roman  Apicius,  the  Epi 
curean,  is  recorded  to  have  discovered  the  exquisite  relish 
of  the  flamingo's  tongue,  and  a  peculiar  mode  of  dressing 
it.  The  Howadji  had  not  been  unwilling  at  dinner  to  have 
tasted  the  delicate  tongue  that  shed  the  one  note  of  warn 
ing.  But  long  before  dinner  the  whir  of  beautiful  wings, 
and  the  rose-cloud  of  flamingoes  had  died  away  deep  into 
the  south. 

The  poor,  unwinged  Ibis  claimed  no  kindred  as  the 
birds  flew  by,  but  clung  quietly  to  the  shore.  The  sun,  too,  in 
setting — well,  is  it  not  strange  that  in  the  radiant  purple 
of  sunset  and  dawn — the  Fellahs,  denizens  of  these  melan 
choly  mud  cabins,  behold  the  promise  of  the  plague  ?  "What 
sympathy  have  we  with  those  who  see  a  plague-spot  in 
the  stately  splendor  of  these  sunsets  ? 

Day  by  day,  as  we  descended,  we  were  enjoying  the 
feast  which  we  had  but  rehearsed  in  ascending.  Edfoo, 


236  NILE   NOTES. 


Kum  Ombos,  El  Kab — names  of  note  and  marks  of  mem 
ory.  Men  dwell  in  tombs  still,  and  came  out  to  offer  us  all 
kinds  of  trinkets  and  gay  wares.  Then  upon  dog-like  don 
keys  we  rode  with  feet  dangling  on  the  ground,  across  the 
green  plain  of  the  valley  to  the  Arabian  desert,  whose  line 
is  as  distinctly  and  straightly  marked  along  the  green,  as 
the  sea  line  along  the  shore.  The  cultivated  plain  does 
not  gradually  die  away  through  deeper  and  more  sandy 
barrenness  into  the  desert,  but  it  strikes  it  with  a  shock, 
and  ends  suddenly ;  and  the  wide- waving  corn  and  yellow 
cotton  grow  on  the  edge  of  the  sand,  like  a  hedge.  The 
Howadji,  embarked  in  his  little  cockle-boat  of  a  donkey, 
puts  out  to  desert  as  little  boats  to  sea,  and  scrambling  up 
the  steep  sand-sides  of  the  first  hills,  sees  upon  the  grotto- 
walls  of  El  Kab  much  of  the  cotemporary  history  of  the 
life  and  manners  of  antique  Egypt.  The  details  of  social 
customs  and  the  habits  of  individual  life  are  painted  upon 
the  walls,  so  that  the  peculiar  profession  of  the  occupant 
of  the  tomb  can  be  easily  determined.  But  let  us  cling 
to  the  sunshine  as  long  as  possible,  for  we  shall  explore 
tombs  and  darkness  enough  at  Thebes. 


XXXV. 


"  ANT.  Most  sweet  Queeh." 

A  VOLUPTUOUS  morning  awakened  the  Howadji  under 
the  shore  at  Erment.  Cloudless  the  sky  as  Cleopatra's 
eyes,  when  they  looked  on  Csesar.  "Warmly  rosy  the  azure 
that  domed  the  world,  as  if  to-day  it  were  a  temple  dedi 
cate  to  beauty.  And  stepping  ashore,  to  the  altars  of 
beauty  we  repaired.  No  sacrificial,  snowy  lambs,  no  gar 
lands  of  gorgeous  flowers,  did  the  worship  require.  The 
day  itself  was  flower  and  feast  and  triumphal  song.  The 
day  itself  lingered  luminously  along  the  far  mountain 
ranges,  paling  in  brilliance  and  over  the  golden  green  of 
the  spacious  plain,  that  was  a  flower-enameled  pavement 
this  morning,  for  our  treading,  as  if  unceasingly  to  remind 
us  that  we  went  as  worshipers  of  beauty  only,  and  the 
fame  of  beauty  that  fills  the  world. 

The  Howadji  confesses  that  no  Egyptian  morning  is 
more  memorable  to  him  than  this,  for  nothing  Egyptian 
is  so  cognate  to  our  warm-blooded  human  sympathy  as 
the  rich  romance  of  Cleopatra  and  her  Roman  lovers. 
After  the  austere  impression  of  the  elder  Egyptian  mond- 


238  NILE   NOTES. 


ments,  this  simply  human  and  lovely  association  was 
greatly  fascinating.  Ramses  to-day  was  not  great.  Ho 
subdued  Babylon,  but  Cleopatra  conquered  Julius  Caesar. 
Marc  Antony  called  his  Cleopatra-children,  kings  of  kings. 
The  conqueror  of  the  conqueror  was  the  divinity  of  the 
day. 

I  know  not  if  it  were  the  magic  of  the  morning,  but 
the  world  to-day  was  Cleopatra.  Hers  was  the  spirit  of 
the  air,  the  lines  of  the  landscape.  In  any  land  the  same 
day  would  have  suggested  her  perpetually  to  the  imagina 
tion — for  there  are  Greek  and  Roman  days,  Italian  and 
Sicilian,  Syrian  and  African.  And  these  days  correspond 
in  character  with  the  suggestion  they  make.  Many  and 
many  a  day  had  the  Howadji  seen  and  loved  the  serpent 
of  old  Nile,  before  he  beheld  Africa,  many  a  long  June 
day  had  been  tranced  in  Italy  in  the  Fornarina's  spell, 
many  a  twilight  had  lingered  along  Galilean  heights  with 
him  to  whom  the  Syrens  of  the  Syrian  sky,  Love  and 
Pleasure  and  Ambition,  sang  in  vain,  and  that  long  beforG 
he  had  trod  the  broad  silent  way  of  waters,  that  leads  the 
Western  to  them,  and  which  keeps  them  forever  cool  and 
consecrate  in  his  imagination.  These  dreams,  or  realities 
of  feeling,  were  not  occasioned  by  pictures  or  poems,  but 
were  the  sentiment  of  the  day.  The  soul  seems  then  sen 
suously  to  apprehend  the  intensity  of  emotion  that  is  sym 
bolized.  And  when  you  travel  into  the  lands  of  which  you 
read  and  dreamed,  you  will  be  touched  with  your  want  of 
surprise  in  their  delights.  But  many  an  unheeded  silent 
strain  of  sunshine,  or  night- appalling  tempest,  had  sung 


CLEOPATRA.  239 


and  thundered  their  sacred  secret  to  your  mind.  The  day, 
therefore,  was  so  much  Cleopatra,  that  only  the  fairest  fate 
could  have  drifted  us  upon  that  morning  to  the  shore  of 
Erment. 

The  forms  and  hues  of  old  Egypt  were  vague  and  pale 
in  the  presence  of  this  modern  remembrance.  I  confess 
that  the  erudite  Sir  Gardiner,  and  the  Poet  Martineau,  do 
riot  very  lovingly  linger  around  Erment.  I  confess  their 
facts.  The  temple  is  of  the  very  last  genuine  Egyptian 
days,  the  child  of  the  dotage  of  Egyptian  art,  when  it  was 
diseased  and  corrupted  by  Roman  prostitution.  The  an 
tique  grandeur  is  gone.  It  is  the  remains  of  an  interreg 
num  between  the  old  and  the  new — the  faint  death-strug 
gle  of  an  expiring  art,  or  if  the  insatiable  poets  demand,  a 
galvanized  quiver  after  death.  All  that,  if  the  erudite  and 
the  antiquarian  require.  Here  is  no  architectural,  no  the 
ological  or  mystical — romantically  historical  and  very  du 
biously  moral  (after  the  Bunyan  standard)  interest.  This 
is  the  hieroglyph  that  might  balk  Champollion,  yet  which 
the  merest  American  Howadji  might  read  as  he  ran. 

For  what  boots  it?  Is  not  Cleopatra  a  radiant,  the 
only  radiant  image,  in  our  Egyptian  annals  ?  Are  we 
humanly  related  to  Menmophth,  or  any  Amunoph  ?  Are 
not  the  periods  of  history  epically  poetic  that  treat  of  her, 
while  they  grope  and  reel  seeking  Thothmes  and  Amun  in 
the  dark  ?  Besides,  Cleopatra  sat  glorious  in  beauty  upon 
Ramses'  throne,  and  the  older  thrones  are,  the  more  ven 
erable  are  they.  And  if  the  great  darling  of  Amun  Re 
heroically  held  his  heritage,  grant  that  the  child  of  Venus 


240  NILE    NOTES. 


well  lost  it,  melting  the  pearl  of  her  inheritance  in  the 
glowing  wine  of  her  love. 

-.  Neocesar  should  have  been  a  Grod's  darling,  and  so 
have  died  young.  And  that  he  might  have  been,  but  for 
the  whim  of  Nature,  who  will  not  give  the  fairest  blossoms 
to  the  noblest  trees.  As  if  she  were  a  housewife  upon 
allowance,  and  had  not  illimitable  capacity  of  mating 
beauty  with  power  wherever  they  meet.  But  in  this 
temple  of  Erment  we  will  not  reproach  her.  For  Nature 
satisfied  the  Ideal  in  giving  Cleopatra  to  Caesar. 

Such,  I  suppose  to  have  been  the  ox-necked  Abdallah's 
musings  as  he  stumbled  up  the  steep  bank  from  the  junk, 
bearing  the  torch  crate,  for  all  Egyptian  temples  require 
great  light  to  be  thrown  upon  the  interior  darkness  of  their 
Adyta  or  holy  of  holies,  and  skeptical  Howadji  suspect 
that  the  dog-faithful  Abdallah  did  it  more  satisfactorily 
than  the  priests,  who,  ex-officio,  were  the  intellectual  lan 
terns  of  old  Egypt. 

Sundry  shapeless  heaps  of  dingy  blanket  strewn  upon 
the  wind-sheltered,  sun-flooded  bank  were  the  crew.  They 
had  diligently  rowed  all  night,  and  had  crept  ashore  to 
sleep.  They  too  had  reason  to  bless  the  "  most  sweet 
Queen,"  and  we  left  them,  honoring  the  day  and  its 
divinity  in  their  own  way. 

The  picture  of  that  morning  is  permanent.  Like  all 
Egyptian  pictures  composed  of  a  few  grand  outlines,  a 
few  graceful  details,  but  charged,  brimming,  transfigured 
with  light,  and  brooding  over  all,  the  profound  repose  of 
the  azure  skv — which  does  not  seem  to  be  an  arch  so  much 


CLEOPATRA.  241 


as  to  rest  rosily  upon  the  very  eye — and  so  transparent 
that  the  vision  is  not  bluffed  against  a  blue  dome,  but 
sinks  and  sinks  into  all  degrees  of  distance/,  like  Un-  ta 
dine's  in  her  native  watery  atmosphere.  It  would  not 
surprise  the  happy  eye,  if  forms,  invisible  in  other  qualities 
of  atmosphere,  should  float  and  fade  in  the  rosiness.  Such 
delicate  depths  imply  .a  creation  as  fair — and  as  the  eye 
swims  leisurely  along,  the  Howadji  feels  that  it  is  only 
the  grossness  of  his  seeing  that  hides  the  loveliness  from 
his  apprehension,  and  yet  feeling  the  fascination,  believes 
that  somewhere  under  the  palms  upon  these  shores,  flow 
the  fountains  whose  water  shall  wash. away  all  blindness. 
And  if  anywhere,  why  not  here  ?  Here,  where  she,  the 
Queen  of  the  South  not  less  than  her  sister  of  Sheba, 
lived  and  loved.  For  the  Persian  poets  sing  well  ,in  the 
moonlight,  that  only  the  eyes  of  love  see  angels.  Yet 
until  that  fountain  is  reached,  this  sky  is  the  dream, 
the  landscape  its  light-limned  realm,  and  at  Ernrent,  near 
Esne,  near  Cleopatra,  who  but  the  gracious  and  graceful 
Grhawazee  are  the  people  of  those  dreams  ?  ;~ ,  : 

The  Pacha  with  the  cherished  one-barrel  went  before, 
occasionally  damaging  the  symmetry  of  family  circles  of 
pigeons  upon  the  palms.  Abdallah  plunged  like  a  mastiff 
after  the  fallen  victims,  and  bore  them  grinningly  in  his 
hand — while  I  sedately  closed  the  rear,  dazed  in  the  double 
radiance  of  the  day  and  the  G-olden-sleeve.  Our  path  lay 
across  a  prairie  of  young  grain.  The  unwaving  level 
stretched  away  to  the  Libyan  mountains — that  still  ranged 
along  the  west,  silver-pale  in  the  intense  sunlight.  And 

L 


242  NILE    NOTES. 


still  as  we  went,  this  glad  morning,  the  world  was  flower- 
paven,  and  walled  with  sapphire.  The  plain  seemed  to 
shrink  from  the  least  unevenness,  lest  the  nourishing  Nile 
should  not  everywhere  overspread  it — or  was  it  that  it 
would  lay  a  floor  .broad  and  beautiful  enough  to  approach 
those  ruined  altars  of  beauty  ? 

For  they  are  ruins,  and  although  it  is  a  temple  built 
by  Cleopatra  for  the  worship  of  Amun,  upon  its  altars  now 
no  other  homage  is  offered  than  to  her.  Grorgeous  cactuses, 
and  crimson-hearted  roses,  and  glowing,  abundant  oleanders 
be  your  flower  offerings  when  you  bend  before  them  at 
high,  hot  noon,  and  pour  out  no  other  libations  there,  than 
reddest  and  most  delirious  wine. 

The  great  temple  is  quite  destroyed,  and  the  remains 
of  the  smaller  one,  like  all  the  temples  of  Egypt,  are  quarries 
of  materials  for  the  building  of  the  neighboring  mud 
villages  and  chance  factories,  which  Mohammad  Alee 
commenced,  and  which  will  probably  gradually  fall  into 
disuse  and  decay,  now  that  he  is  gone.  The  temple  is 
but  a  group  of  columns  with  the  walls  of  a  court,  and  two 
interior  chambers  upon  which  are  sculptures  representing 
Cleopatra  and  Neocesar  with  godly  titles  offering  homage 
and  gifts  to  the  Grods.  The  few  remaining  columns  rise 
handsomely  from  the  sand  and  dust  heaps  that  surround 
all  temples  here.  They  are  evidently  of  the  latest  Ptole 
maic  days — but  to  the  uninitiated  in  architectural  ac 
curacy— -to  those  who  can  also  enjoy  what  is  not  absolutely 
perfect  in  its  kind  but  even  very  imperfect,  these  groups 
are  yet  graceful  and  pleasing.  How  can  stately  sculptures 


CLEOPATRA.       .*.»:*  243 


bearing  forms  so  famous,  be  otherwise  in  a  mud  and  sand 
wilderness  ?  The  sculptures  themselves  are  poor  and  fast 
crumbling.  Yet  although  fast  crumbling,  here  is  the  only 
authentic  portrait  of  Cleopatra.  This  is  she— of  whom 
Enotarbus  said  in  words  that  shall  outlive  these  sculptures 
and  give  her  to  a  later  age  than  any  thing  material  may 
attain — 

'-,-•-.  ".-'•:'  .  ••'       '    '          •"•'..'•'•     -. 

"  Age  can  not  wither  her — nor  custom  stale 
Her  infinite  variety.     Other  women 
Cloy  the  appetites  they  feed — but  she  makes  hungry 
Where  most  she  satisfies.     For  vilest  things 
Become  themselves  in  her;  that  the  holy  Priests       '.,'';' 
Bless  her  when  she  is  riggish." 

i  --•-',.-'- 

The  Persian  poets  sing  farther  when  the  moon  is  at  the 
full,  that  only  lovers'  tongues  speak  truly. 

You  will  not  expect  to  find  a  perfect  portrait  upon 
these  walls,  and  will  see  her  sitting  and  holding  Neocesar 
in  her  lap,  as  Isis  holds  Horus  at  Philse — while  she  offers 
gifts  to  the  bull  Basis.  And  although  this  temple  was 
covered  all  over  with  the  rudely  sculptured  form  and  face 
of  the  fairest  Queen  of  History,  I  could  find  but  two.  which 
were  tolerably  perfect  and  individual. 

The  first  is  upon  one  of  the  columns  of  the  transverse 
colonnade  of  the  portico.  The  features  are  quite  small. 
The  nose,1  which  seems  strongly  to  mark  the  likeness, 
departs  from  all  known  laws  of  nasal  perfection,  and  curves 
the  wrong  way.  0  Isis— and  0  Athor,  Greek  Aphrodite, 
if  Cleopatra  had  a  pug  nose!  Yet  it  is  more  pug  than 


244  NILE   NOTES. 


aquiline  or  Grecian, — a  seemingly  melancholy  occurrence 
in  a  face  so  famously  fair. 

But  I  found  that  this  peculiarity  of  feature,  by  its  very 
discord  with  the  canons  of  beauty,  suggested  the  soul  that 
must  have  so  radiantly  illuminated  the  face  into  its  be 
wildering  beauty.  Grreek  statues  are  not  the  semblance 
of  lovable  women.  The  faces  are  fair,  but  far  away  from 
feeling.  The  features  are  exquisitely  carved,  and  the 
graceful  balance  is  musical  to  the  eye.  But  they  lack 
the  play  of  passion — the  heat-lightning  of  sentiment  and 
soul  that  flushes  along  a  thousand  faces  not  so  fair.  The 
expression  partakes  of  the  quality  of  the  material,  and  differs 
from  life  as  that  from  flesh.  Beautiful  are  the  forms  and 
faces,  but  they  are  carved  in  cold,  colorless  marble — not  in 
rosy  flesh.  It  is  the  outline  of  the  Venus  form,  not  her  face, 
that  is  fascinating.  Among  Gfreek  sculptures  no  face  is 
so  permanently  beautiful  as  the  head  of  Clytie — and  that 
because  it  is  so  charged  with  the  possibility  of  human 
experience.  The  others  do  not  seem  serenely  superior  to 
that  experience  like  the  Egyptian  Colossi,  but  simply  soul 
less.  The  beautiful  story  of  Clytie  is  felt  through  her  face. 
For  when  Apollo  deserted  her  for  Leucothoe,  she  revealed 
his  love  to  the  father  of  her  rival.  But  Apollo  only  despised 
her  the  more,  and  the  sad  Clytie  drooped  and  died  into  the 
heliotrope  or  sun-flower,  still  forever  turning  toward  the 
sun.  Nor  .less  fair  the  fate  of  her  rival,  who  was  buried 
alive  by  her  father ;  and  love-lorn  Apollo,  unable  to  save 
her,  sprinkled  nectar  and  ambrosia  upon  her  grave,  which 
reached  her  body  and  changed  it  into  a  beautiful  tree  that 


CLEOPATRA.  245 


bears  the  frankincense.  How  well  sound  these  stories  at 
Erment,  while  we  remember  Cleopatra  and  look  upon  her 
likeness  ! 

The  very  departure  from  the  ordinary  laws  of  sculp 
tured  beauty  only  suggests  that  loftier  and  more  alluring, 
where  the  soul  suffuses  the  features.  And  this  being  ever 
the  most  intimate  and  profound  beauty,  the  queenly  charm 
spread  from  the  face  as  we  looked,  and  permeated  the 
whole  person.  Cleopatra  stands  in  imagination  now,  not  a 
beautiful  brunette  merely,  but  a  mysteriously  fascinating 
woman.  **  My  serpent  of  old  Nile,"  was  a  truth  of  the 
lover's  tongue. 

Roman  and  man  as  Julius  Caesar1  was,  he  was  too 
much  a  Roman  and  a  man  to  have  been  thrall  to  prettiness 
merely.  There  must  have  been  a  glorious  greed  of  passion 
in  an  Italian  nature  like  his  and  Marc  Antony's,  which 
only  the  very  soul  of  Southern  voluptousness  could  have  so 
satisfied  and  enchained.  Nor  allow  any  Western  feeling  to 
mar  the  magnificence  of  the  picture  which  this  place  and 
day,  set  with  those  figures,  offers  to  your  delight.  Let  us 
please  imagination  with  these  stately  figures  of  history. 
Granting  all  the  immoralities  and  .improprieties,  if  they 
seem  such  to  you,  let  them  go  as  not  pertinent  to  the  occa 
sion.  But  the  grace,  and  the  beauty,  and  the  power,  the 
sun  behind  his  spots,  are  the  large  inheritance  of  all 
time.  "Why  should  we  insist  upon  having  all  the  in 
convenience  of  cotemporaries  whose  feet  were  pinched  and 
sides  squeezed  by  these  so  regal  figures  ?  Why  should  we 
encase  ourselves  triply  and  triply  in  a  close  ball  of  petty 


246  NILE    NOTES. 


prejudices  and  enlightened  ideas,  and  go  tumbling,  beetle- 
like,  through  the  moonlighted  halls  of  history,  instead  of 
floating  upon  butterfly  wings  and  with  the  song  and  soar 
ing  of  the  lark  ?  The  Howadji  will  use  his  advantage  of 
distance,  and  not  see  the  snakes  and  sharp  stones  which  he 
knows  are  upon  the  mountains,  but  only  the  graceful 
grandeur  of  the  outline  against  the  sky. 

Education  is  apt  to  spoil  the  poetry  of  travel  by  so 
starting  us  in  the  dry  ruts  of  prejudice,  or  even  upon  the 
turnpike  of  principle,  that  we  can  scarcely  ever  see  the 
most  alluring  landscape  except  at  right  angles,  and  doubt 
fully  and  hurriedly  over  our  shoulders.  Yet  if  Cleopatra 
had  done  so,  would  the  Howadji  have  tarried  at  Erment  ? 
The  great  persons  and  events  that  notch  time  in  passing, 
do  so  because  nature  gave  them  such  an  excessive  and  exag 
gerated  impulse,  that  wherever  they  touch  they  leave  their 
mark ;  and  that  intense  humanity  secures  human  sym 
pathy  beyond  the  most  beautiful  balance,  which  indeed 
the  angels  love,  and  which  we  are  learning  to  appreciate. 

For  what  is  the  use  of  being  a  modern,  with  the  priv 
ilege  of  tasting  every  new  day  as  it  ripens,  if  we  can  not 
leave  in  the  vaults  of  antiquity  what  we  choose  ?  Was 
Alexander  less  the  great  because  he  had  a  wry  neck  ? 
Leave  the  wry  neck  behind.  You  may  bring  forth  all 
the  botches  of  the  stonecutters,  if  you  will,  but  mine  be 
the  glorious  booty  of  the  Laocoon,  of  the  Venus  and  the 
Apollo.  I  shall  not  therefore  say  that  the  artist  who 
wrought  works  so  fair,  did  not  botch  elsewhere.  But  I 
certainly  shall  not  inquire. 


CLEOPATRA.  24T 


In  like  manner  Julius  Caesar  and  Queen  Cleopatra 
being  of  no  farther  influence  upon  human  affairs,  imagina 
tion  sucks  from  history  all  the  sweet  of  their  story  and 
builds  honey-hives  nectarean.  The  Howadji  fears  that  the 
clerical  imagination  at  Erment  might  not  do  so — that  all 
the  reform  and  universal  peace  societies  would  miss  the 
Cleopatra  charm.  But  their  vocation  is  not  wandering 
around  the  world  and  being  awakened  by  voluptuous 
mornings.  Their  honey  is  hived  from  May  flowers  of  rhet 
oric  in  the  tabernacle,  to  which  the  zealous  and  "  panoplied 
in  principle"  must  repair,  passing  Cleopatra  by.  -i 

The  village  of  Ejment  balances  singularly  this  glowing 
Grhazeeyah  fame  by  offsetting  the  undoubted  temple  of  the 
doubtful  Cleopatra  with  a  vague  claim  of  being  the  birth 
place  of  Moses.  We  did  not  tarry  long  enough  to  resolve 
the  question,  although  as  he  was  found,  by  Pharaoh's 
daughter  among  the  bulrushes  of  the  lower  Nile,  there  is 
no  glaring  impossibility  that  he  may  have  been  born  at 
Erment. 

Disregarding  Moses,  we  cordially  cursed  the  shekh  of 
the  village,  who  has  coolly  put  his  mud  hovel  upon,  the 
roof  of  the  adyta  of  the  temple,  and  quite  as  coolly  convert 
ing  the  adyta  themselves  into  dungeons.  The  modern 
Egyptian  has  not  the  slightest  curiosity  or  interest  in  the 
noble  remains  of  his  land.  He  crawls  around  them,  and 
covers  them  with  mud  cells,  in  which  he  and  his  swarm 
like  vermin.  But  speak  them  fair  as  you  would  water 
rats.  Without  ideas,  how  can  they  feel  the  presence  of 
ideas?  We  passed  through  the  mud- walled  court  be- 


248  NILE    NOTES. 


low  the  shekh's  dwelling  to  reach  the  adyta  of  the  tem 
ple.  The  court  was  grouped  with  Arnout  soldiers,  crouch 
ing  over  a  fire,  smoking  and  chatting.  These  Albanians 
were  the  fiercest  part  of  Grandfather  Mohammad's  army. 
They  revolted  when  Belzoni  was  in  Cairo,  drove  the  Pacha 
into  the  citadel,  ravaged  the  city  at  leisure,  and  were  then 
quieted.  But  they  became  altogether  too  fierce — assassi 
nating  quiet  and  moral  Mohammadans  on  the  slightest 
provocation,  and  Christians  as  they  would  cockroaches — 
and  Grandfather  Mohammad  was  obliged  to  send  the  most 
of  them  to  the  destructive  climate  of  upper  Ethiopia,  and 
so  be  gently  rid  of  them. 

They  are  light-complexioned,  sharp-featured,  smart- 
looking  men,  else  had  Mohammad  Alee  not  used  them  so 
constantly,  and  are  by  far  the  most  intelligent-looking 
class  in  Egypt,  for  they  have  dashes  of  Greek  blood  in 
their  veins,  and  modem  Greek  blood  is  thick  with  knavery. 
But  their  faces  are  as  bad  as  bright.  Like  fish,  they  seem 
to  have  cold  blood,  and  you  feel  that  they  would  rather 
shoot  you  than  not,  as  boys  prefer  sticking  flies  to  letting 
them  be.  '  Hence  a  certain  interest  with  which  the  passing 
Howadji  regards  their 'silver-mounted  pistols. 

"We  paused  a  moment  at  the  door  of  the  Adytum,  and 
a  swarm  of  unclean  women  came  clustering  out.  They 
were  the  relatives  of  the  prisoners  whom  the  government 
held  in  the  dungeons.  There  was  no  light  in  the  small 
chamber  which  we  stopped  to  enter,  except  what  curious 
daylight  stole  shrinkingly  in  at  the  low  door.  Abdallah 
lighted  his  torch,  and  we  looked  around  upon  the  holy  6f 


CLEOPATRA.  249 


holies  of  Queen  Cleopatra.  The  Adytum  was  small,  and 
reeked  with  filth  and  stench.  Two  or  three  prisoners  lay 
miserably  upon  the  damp  floor,  and  we  held  our  glaring 
torch  over  them,  and  looked  at  the  sculptures  on  the  walls. 
But  without  much  heart.  It  was  sorry  work,  and  we 
made  it  brief— the .  indulgence  of  curiosity  and  sentiment 
in  so  sad  a  society. 

There  was  a  little  inner  roomr  upon  the  walls  of  which 
we  found  the  other  portrait  of  the  queen;  But  I  could  not 
remain — imagination  and  the  mere  human  stomach  re 
coiled.  For  in  this  Adytum  of  Adyta  in  Cleopatra's  tem 
ple, — the  olive-browed,' — the  odorous, — was  uncleanness 
such  as  scarcely  the  pilgrim  to  the  Tarpeian  rock  hag  con 
ceived. 

We  passed  through  the  court  unshot,  and  through  the 
dusty  village,  whose  myriad  dogs,  and  of  especial  foul 
fame  even  in  Egypt,  barked  frantically,  and  so  emerged 
upon  the  corn  stubble  and  the  coarse  hilfeh  grass,  upon  the 
river  bank.  Then  through  a  palm-grove  we  entered  upon 
greener  reaches,  and  sat  down  upon  a  high  point  over  the 
river  to  await  the  boat,  which  was  to  float  slowly  down 
and  meet  us.  The  perfection  of  the  day  lacked  only  a 
vision  of  leisure,  graceful  life.  And  what  other  could 
the  vision  be  upon  that  point  in  the  calm  air,  high  over 
the  calm  water,  but  that  of  the  queen's  barge,  sumptu 
ously  sliding  upon  the  golden  gleam  ?  Behold  it,  dreamer, 
where  it  comes : 

"  The  bargtf  ehe  sat  in  like  a  burnished  throne, 
Burned  on  the  water :  the  poop  was  beaten  gold, 

L* 


250  NILE    NOTES. 


Purple  the  sails,  and  so  perfumed,  that 

The  winds  were  love-sick  with  them :  the  oars  were  silver, 

Which  to  the  tune  of  flutes  kept  stroke,. and  made 

The  water  which  they  beat  to  follow  faster, 

As  amorous  of  their  strokes.     For  her  own  person, 

It  beggared  all  description :  she  did  lie 

In  her  pavilion  (cloth  of  gold,  of  tissue) 

O'erpicturing  that  Venus,  where  we  see 

The  fancy  outwork  nature.     On  each  side  her 

Stood  pretty  dimpled  boys,  like  smiling  Cupids, 

With  diverse -colored  fans,  whose  wind  did  seem 

To  glow  the  delicate  cheeks  which  they  did  cool — 

And  what  they  undid,  did." 

"  0  rare  for  Antony !" 
'"  Her  gentlewomen  like  the  Nereides, 
So  many  mermaids,  tended  her  i'  the  eyes, 
And  made  their  bends  adornings.     At  the  helm 
A  seeming  mermaid  steers,  the  silken  tackle 
Swells  with  the  touches  of  those  flower-soft  hands, 
That  yarely  frame  the  office.    From  the  barge 
A  strange,  invisible  perfume  hits  the  sense 
Of  the  adjacent  wharves.    The  city  cast 
Her  people  out  upon  her,  and  Antony, 
Enthroned  in  the  market-place,  did  eit  alone 
Whistling  to  the  air,  which,  but  for  vacancy, 
Had  gone  to  gaze  on  Cleopatra,  too, 
And  made  a  gap  in  nature." 

"  Rare  Egyptian."    k- 

-"  There's  the  junk,"  said  the  Pacha. 

"  She  be  float  very  quick,"  said  Golden-sleeve,  and 
sliding  down  the  sand,  we  stepped  on  board  and  gave 
chase  to  Fancy's  fair  flotilla.  Fair  and  fleet,  it  floated  on, 
away,  nor  ever  comes  to  shore.  But  still  through  the 
cloudless  calm  of  sky  and  stream  your  dreaming  sees  it 


v-v-."  -x 

CLEOPATRA.    -     .   "  251 


pass,   with  measured  throb  of  languid   oars,  voluptuous 
music  voicing  the  day's  repose.   , 

In  the  afternoon,  we  dropped  leisurely  down  the  river 
to  Thebes.  Before  sunset  we  were  moored  to  the  shore  of 
Luxor,  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  stream,  and  almost  in  the 
shadow  of  the  temple.  A  cluster  of  Howadji's  boats  clung 
to  the  shore  with  gay  streamers  and  national  flags,  and  all 
over  the  shore  sat  and  stood  groups  of  natives  with, trinkets 
and  curiosities  to  sell,  or  donkeys  to  let.  We  strolled  up 
to  the  temple  of  Luxor,  and  looked  westward  over  the 
mountains  of  the  "  Libyan  suburb,"  as  Herodotus  calls 
the  part  of  the  city  upon  the  western  shore.  It  was  cov 
ered  with  temples  and  tombs  then,  but  the  great  mass  of 
the  city  was  on  the  eastern  bank,  where  Luxor  now  stands. 
The  highlands  were  exquisitely  hued  in  the  sunset.  But 
Patience  was  so  belabored  with  an  universal  shriek  of 
bucksheesh,  that  she  fled  to  the  junk  again,  and  recovered 
in  the  cool  calm  of  Theban  starlight. 


XXXVI. 


"  Heard  melodies  are  sweet,  —  but  those  unheard  are  sweeter." 

FROM  earliest  childhood  Memnon  was  the  central,  com 
manding  figure  in  my  fancies  of  the  East.  Rising  imagi 
nation  struck  first  upon  his  form,  and  he  answered  in 
music  —  wondrous,  wooing,  winning,  that  must  needs  vi 
brate  forever,  although  his  voice  is  hushed.  Whether  this 
was  from  an  instinctive  feeling,  that  this  statue  and  its 
story  were  a  kind  of  completeness  and  perfection  in  art  — 
the  welcome  recognition  of  art  by  nature  —  or  more  proba 
bly  from  the  simple  marvelousness  and  beauty  of  the  tale, 
I  shall  inquire  of  the  Sphinx.  As  we  passed  up  the  river, 
and  I  beheld  in  the  solemn,  sunless  morning  light,  like 
a  shadowed,  thoughtful  summer  day,  the  majestic  form 
sitting  serenely  upon  the  plain,  the  most  prominent  and 
noticeable  object  in  the  landscape,  I  knew  that  memories 
would  linger  around  him  as  hopes  had  clustered,  and  that 
his  calm  grandeur  would  rule  my  East  forever. 

For  throned  upon  ruined  Thebes  sits  Memnon,  himself 
a  ruin,  but  regal  still.  Once  seen  he  is  aways  seen,  and 
sits  as  uncrumbling  in  memory  as  in  the  wide  azure  silence 


MEMNON.  253 


of  his  Libyan  plain.  Daily  comes  the  sun  as  of  old,  and  in 
spires  him  no  longer.  Son  of  the  morning !  why  so  silent  ? 
Yet  not  dumb  utterly,  sing  still  the  Persians,  when  poets 
listen,  kindred  sons  of  the  morning. 

Yearly  comes  the  Nile  humbly  to  his  feet,  and  laving 
them,  pays  homage.  Then  receeding  slowly,  leaves  water 
plants  wreathed  around  the  throne,  on  which  he  is  sculp 
tured  as  a  good  genius  harvesting  the  lotus,  and  brings  a 
hundred  travelers  to  perpetuate  the  homage. 

The  history  of  art  says  little  of  Memnon  and  his  mate, 
and  the  more  perfect  colossi  of  Aboo  Simbel.  Yet.it  is  in 
these  forms  that  the  Howadji  most  strongly  feels  the  ma 
turity  of  the  Egyptian  mind — more  strongly  than  in  the 
temples  whose  sculptures  are  childish.  But  here  you  feel 
that  the  artist  recognized,  as  we  do  to-day,  that  serene  re 
pose  is  the  attitude  and  character  of  godlike  grandeur. 

Nor  are  there  any  works  of  art  so  well  set  in  the  land 
scape,  save  the  Pestum  temples  in  their  sea-shored,  moun 
tain-walled  prairie  of  flowers.  Standing  between  the 
columns  of  Neptune's  temple  at  Pestum,  let  the  lover  of 
beauty  look  out  over  the  bloom-brilliant  plain  to  the  blue 
sea,  and  meditate  of  Memnon.  Then,  if  there  be  pictures 
or  poems  or  melodies  in  his  mind,  they  will  be  Minerva- 
born,  and  surprise  himself.  Yet  he  will  have  a  secreter 
sympathy  with  these  forms  than  with  any  temple,  how 
grand  or  graceful  soever.  Yes,  and  more  than  with  any 
statue  that  he  recalls.  And  that  sympathy  will  be  greater 
in  the  degree  that  these  are  grander.  Not  the  elastic  grace 
of  the  Apollo  will  seem  so  cognate  to  him  as  the  melan- 


254  NILE    NOTES. 


choly  grandeur  of  Memnon.  For  these  forms  impress  man 
with  himself.  These  are  our  forms,  and  how  wondrously 
fashioned !  In  them,  we  no  longer  succumb  to  the  land- 
.scape,  but  sit  individual  and  imperial,  under  the  sky,  by  the 
mountains  and  the  river.  Man  is  magnified  in  Memnon. 

These  sublime  sketches  in  stone  are  an  artist's  work. 
They  are  not  mere  masses  of  uninformed  material.  And 
could  we  know  to-day  the  name  of  him  who  carved  them 
in  their  places,  not  the  greatest  names  of  art  should  be 
haloed  with  more  radiant  renown.  In  those  earlier  days, 
art  was  not  content  with  the  grace  of  nature,  but  coped 
with  its  proportions.  Vain  attempt,  but  glorious  !  It  Was 
to  show  us  as  we  are  ideally  in  nature,  not  the  greatest, 
but  the  grandest.  And  to  a  certain  degree  this  success  is 
achieved.  The  imitative  Romans  essayed  the  same  thing. 
But  their  little  men  they  only  made  larger  little  men  by 
carving  them  fifty  feet  high.  Out  of  Nero,  Tiberius  or 
Caligula  to  make  an  imposing  work  of  art,  although  you 
raised  the  head  to  the  clouds,  was  more  than  Roman  or 
Greek,  or  any  human  genius  could  achieve.  It  was  still 
littleness  on  a  great  scale.  Size  is  their  only  merit,  and 
the  elaborate  detail  of  treatment  destroys,  as  much  as  possi 
ble,  all  the  effect  of  size.  But  the  Egyptian  Colossi  present 
kings,  of  kingliness  so  kingly  that  they  became  Grods  in  the 
imagination  of  men,  and  remain  Grods  in  their  memories. 

Vain  attempt,  says  truly  the  thoughtful  artist.  But 
glorious,  responds  the  poet.  Vain  and  glorious  as  the  at 
tempt  of  youth  to  sculpture  in  hard  life  its  elastic  hope. 
Failure  fairer  than  general  success.  Like  the  unfinished 


MEMNON.  255 


statues  of  Michel  Angelo — unfinished,  as  if  an  ideal  ever 
too  lofty  and  various  haunted  his  imagination,  whereto 
human  tools  were  insufficient.  Alone  in  sculpture,  Michel 
Angelo's  Night  and  Moses  are  peers  of  the  realm  of  Mem- 
non  and  the  Aboo  Simbel  Colossi. 

Looking  into  the  morning  mists  of  history  and  poetry, 
the  Howadji  finds  that  Homer  mentions  Memnon  as  a  son 
of  Aurora  and  Titho,  King  of  Ethiopia,  and  brother  of 
Priam,  the  most  beautiful  of  warriors,  who  hastened  with 
myriads  of  men  to  assist  uncle  Priam  against  the  Greeks. 
Achilles  slew  Memnon  under  the  walls  of  Troy,  and  the 
morning  after  his  death,  as  Aurora  put  aside  the  darkness 
and  looked  vaguely  and  wan  along  the  world,  the  first  level 
look  that  touched  the  lips  of  the  hitherto  silent  statue  upon 
the  plain,  evoked  mysterious  music.  There  were  birds,  too, 
memnonides,  who  arose  from  out  the  funeral  pyre  of  Mem 
non,  and  as  he  burned,  fought  fiercely  in  the  air,  so  that 
more  than  half  fell  offerings  to  his  manes.  Every  year 
they  return  to  renew  the  combat,  and  every  year  with  low 
wailings  they  dip  their  wings  in  the  river  water,  and  care 
fully  cleanse  the  statue.  Dew-dia.monded  cobwebs,  fasci 
nating  fable,  0  history ! 

Emperors,  historians,  and  poets  heard  this  sound,  or 
heard  of  it,  nor  is  there  any  record  of  the  phenomenon  an 
terior  to  the  Romans.  Strabo  is  the  first  that  speaks  of  it, 
and  Strabo  himself  heard  it.  But  the  statue  was  then 
shattered,  and  he  did  not  know  if  the  sound  proceeded  from 
the  Colossus  or  the  crowd.  Singularly  enough,  the  sound 
is  not  mentioned  before  the  statue  was  broken,  nor  after  it 


256  NILE    NOTES. 


was  repaired,  a  space  of  abdut  two  hundred  years.  Yet 
during  that  time  it  uttered  the  seven  mystic  vowels,  which 
are  the  very  heart  of  mysteries  to  us.  To  Hadrian,  the  em 
peror,  it  sang  thrice  of  a  morning,  yet  to  the  Emperor  Sev- 
erus,  who  repaired  it,  it  was  always  silent.  But  Severus 
came  as  a  raging  religionist,  a  pious  Pagan,  while  Hadrian 
stood  with  Antinous,  whom  the  morning  loved  and  stole 
early  away,  For  they  die  young  whom  the  gods  love,  and 
Aurora  is  their  friend.  The  Persian  poets  would  like  to 
be  quoted  here,  but,  0  Persians,  it  was  your  King  Cam- 
byses  who  shattered  our  statue.  You  may  yet  read  the 
words  sculptured  upon  its  sides,  speaking  sadly  and  strangely 
out  of  the  dim  depths  of  that  antiquity,  which  yet  waxed 
and  waned  under  this  same  blue  sky,  with  the  same 
mountain  outline  upon  which  your  eye,  still  wandering 
from  Memnon,  waves  away  into  rosy  reverie.  "  I  write 
after  having  heard  Memno.  Cambyses  hath  wounded  me, 
a  stone  cut  into  the  image  of  the  sun-king.  I  had  once 
the  sweet  voice  of  Memno,  but  Cambyses  has  deprived  me 
of  the  accents  which  express  joy  and  grief." 


"  You  relate  grievous  things  —  your  voice  is  iow  obscure, 
O  wretched  Statue  !  I  deplore  your  fate." 

For  these  are  ruins.  Memnon  is  a  mass  of  square  blocks 
of  sandstone,  from  the  waist  upward.  His  mate  is  less 
shattered.  In  Memnon,  of  course,  the  original  idea  is  only 
hinted.  But  they  were  to  be  seen  from  a  distance,  and  so 
seen,  they  have  yet  human  grandeur.  Memnon  has  still  a 


MEMNON.  257 


distinct  and  mysterious  interest,  for  no  myth  of  the  most 
graceful  mythology  is  so  significant  as  its  story. 

.Science  rushes  in  explanatory,  with  poetic  theories  of 
sounding  stones  in  all  countries.  Humboldt,  for  Humboldt, 
as  we  saw,  is  a  poet,  is  only  too  glad  to  find  upon  the 
banks  of  the  South  American  Oronoko  granite  rocks  hail 
ing  the  morning  with  organ  majesty  of  music.  He  as 
cribes  the  sound  to  the  effect  of  difference  of  temperature 
between  the  subterranean  and  outer  air.  At  Syene,  too, 
unimaginative  French  Naturalists  have  heard  a  sonorous 
creaking  in  the  granite  quarries,  and  Napoleon's  com 
mission  heard,  rising  from  the  granite  ruins  of  Karnak, 
the  same  creak,  at  morning.  Yet  were  it  a  vibration  of 
expanding  and  contracting  stone  masses,  why  still  and 
forever  silent,  0  mystic  Memnon  !  -* 

Priests  clambered  over  night  into  its  lap,  and  struck  a 
metallic  stone  at  sunrise — exclaims  erudition  and  Sir 
Gardiner,  who  climbed  into  the  same  lap  at  noonday,  and 
striking  the  stone  with  a  little  hammer,  produced  a 
sound,  which  the  listening  peasants  described  in  the  same 
terms  that  Strabo  uses.  But  were  priests  that  struck  thrice 
for  Emperor  Hadrian  so  unsycophantic  grown,  that  even 
for  Severus,  the  restorer  of  their  statue  and  of  their  wor 
ship,  they  would  not  strike  at  all? 

Back  into  romance,  mystic  Memnon !  Neither  the 
priests  who  cajoled  with  it — nor  the  Pharaoh  who  built 
it — nor  the  wise  who  deepen  its  mystery,  can  affect  the 
artistic  greatness  of  the  work,  or  the  poetic  significance 
of  its  story.  -** 


258  NILE    NOTES. 


The  priests  and  Pharaohs  died,  and  their  names  with 
them.  But  Memnon  remains,  not  mute,  though  silent,  and 
let  the  heirs  of  Amunoph  III.  claim  it  as  his  statue,  from 
fame,  poetry  and  thought,  if  they  dare  ! 

Memnon  and  vhis  mate  sat  sixty  feet  into  the  air,  before 
a  temple  of  the  s,aid  Amunoph — of  which  a  few  inarticulate 
stones  lie  among  the  grain  behind.  From  them  to  the 
river,  for  about  a  mile's  distance,  went  the  Strada  Regia, 
the  street  royal  of  Thebes.  There  was  a  street !  upon 
which,  probably,  neither  Grace  church  nor  Trinity  would 
have  been  imposing.  Yet  we  are  proud  of  the  Neapolitan 
Toledo — of  the  Roman  Corso — of  the  Berlin  Unter  den  linden 
— of  the  Parisian  Boulevards — of  London  Regent  street, 
and  we  babble  feebly  of  Broadway.  But  0,  if  Theban 
society  was  proportioned  to  Thebes,  to  have  been  a  butterfly 
of  that  sunshine,  a  Theban  sauntering  of  a  sultry  Jan 
uary  morning  along  the  Strada  Regia,  and  to  have 
paused  in  the  shadow  of  Memnon  and  have  taken  a  hand — 
any  hand,  for  the  mummy  merchant  here  will  select  you 
a  score  from  under  his  robe,  shriveled,  black,  tough, 
smoked-beef  sort  of  hands — and  not  her  lover  could  dis 
tinguish  the  olive  tapers  of  Thothmes  III.'s  darling,  the 
princess  Re-ni-no-fre,  from  the  fingers  of  the  meanest  maid 
that  did  not  dare  look  at  her. 

Here  we  stand  in  the  shadow  of  Memnon  on  a  sultry 
January  morning,  but  the  princess  who  should  meet  us 
here,  lies  dreamless  and  forever  in  these  yellow  hills.  Sad 
moralists,  these  mummy  merchants,  yet  they  say  not  a 
word! 


MEMNON.  259 


An  earthquake  and  Cambyses  divide  the  shame  of  the 
partial  destruction  of  Memnon,  but  it  can  not  be  destroyed. 
This  air  will  cheat  Time  of  a  prey  so  precious.  Yearly 
the  rising  Nile  heaps  its  grave  around  it.  Gradually  the 
earth  will  resume  into  its  bosom,  this  mass  which  she 
bore — and  there  will  hold  it  more  undecaying  than  the 
mountains  the  embalmed  bodies  of  its  cotemporaries.  Un 
worn  in  an  antiquity  in  which  our  oldest  fancies  are  young, 
it  will  endure  to  an  unimagined  future,  then,  Gfodlike, 
vanish  unchanged. 

Pause,  poet,  shoreward  wending.  Upon  the  level  length 
of  green  young  grain,  smooth  as  the  sea-calm,  sits  Mem 
non  by  his  mate.  If  he  greet  the  sun  no  longer  in  rising, 
feel  in  .this  serene  sunset  the  song  of  his  magnificent  re 
pose.  The  austere  Arabian  highlands  are  tender  now.  The 
lonely  Libyan  heights  are  sand  no  more,  but  sapphire.  In 
ever  delicater  depths  of  blue  and  gold  dissolve  the  landscape 
and  the  sky.  It  is  the  transfiguration  of  Nature,  which 
each  of  these  sunsets  is — sweet  and  solemn  and  sad. 

Pause,  poet,  and  confess,  that  if  day  dies  here  so  di 
vinely,  the  sublimest  human  thought  could  not  more  fitly 
sing  its  nativity  than  with  the  voice  of  Memnon. 


.-   -f;  .•?• 
f  .-,-  '   «  ->:  \  Jv- 


<. 


XXXVII 


A  DAZZLING  desert  defile  leads  to  the  Kings'  tombs  at 
Thebes.  The  unsparing  sun  burned  our  little  cavalcade 
as  it  wound  along.  The  white,  glaring  waste  was  wind 
less,  for  although  its  hill-  walls  are  not  lofty,  the  way  is 
narrow  and  stony  and  devious.  So  dreary  a  way  must 
have  made  death  drearier  to  those  death-doomed  royalties. 
But  we  donkeyed  pleasantly  along,  like  young  immortals 
with  all  eternity  before,  and  to  us,  death  and  tombs  and 
kings  were  myths  only. 

And  what  more  are  they,  those  old  Egyptian  monarchs 
for  whom  these  tombs  were  built  ?  Catch  if  you  can 
these  pallid  phantoms  that  hover  on  the  edge  of  history. 
King  Apappus  is  more  a  brain-  vapor  than  Hercules,  and 
our  fair,  far  princess  Re-ni-no-fre  than  our  ever  sea-fresh 
Venus.  "We  must  believe  in  Apollo  and  the  Muses,  but 
Amun-m-gori  III.  is  admitted  into  history  solely  by  our 
grace.  So  much  a  living  myth  surpasses  a  dead  man  ! 
Give  me  the  Parthenon,  and  you  shall  have  alLthe  tombs 
of  all  the  Theban  kings. 

They  were  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  world  in  the 


DEAD    KINGS.  261 

tomb  as  in  the  palace.  So  regal  was  their  royalty  that  no 
inferior  was  company  select  enough  for  their  corpses. 
Unhappy  hermits,  they  had  to  die  for  society,  and  then, 
unhappier,  found  only  themselves.  Fancy  the  mummied 
monarchs  awaking  immortal  and,  looking  round,  to  find 
themselves  and  ancestors  only  I  "Nothing  but  old  Char 
lotte,"  said  the  third  saint  Greorge  of  England.  And  the 
sameness  of  the  old  story  must  have  infused  most  plebeian 
thoughts  and  desires  of  society,  more  spirited  though  less 
select,  into  the  mighty  monarchs'  minds.  For  imagine  the 
four  English  Georges  buried  together,  and  together  awak 
ing — -would  any  celestial  imagination  fancy  that,  the 
choicest  coterie  of  heaven  ? 

Or  young  immortals  donkeying  of  a  bright,  blue 
morning,  under  blue  cotton  umbrellas,  and  cheerfully  chat 
ting,  can  thus  moralize  upon  monarchs  at  leisure,  and  snap 
our  fingers  at  scurvy  scepters,  and  crowns  that  make  heads 
lie  uneasy,  and  dribble  Hamlet  in  the  churchyard  until  we 
are  sopped  with  self-complacent  sentimentality.  But  co- 
temporary  men,  now  adjacent  mummies,  looked  on,  I  sup 
pose,  with  more  dazzled  eyes  when  a:  dead  king  passing, 
made  this  defile  alive. 

Possibly  men  were  blinded  by  the  blaze  of  royalty  in 
those  days,  as,  spite  of  the  complacent  American  Howadji, 
they  are  in  some  others.  And  a  thoughtful  Theban  watch 
ing  the  progress  of  a  royal  funeral,  over  the  Nile  in  barges, 
up  the  Strada  Regia,  wherein  the  mighty  Memnon  shielded 
the  eyes  of  many  from  the  setting  sun,  then  winding  with 
melancholy  monotony  of  music  and  gusty  wail,  and  all 


262  NILE    NOTES. 


human  pomp  through  the  solitary,  sandy,  stony,  treeless 
defile,  possibly  improvised  sonnets  on  the  glory  of  great 
ness,  and  mused  upon  the  fate  that  so,  gilded  a  mortal  life 
and  death. 

Seventy- two  days  the  king  lay  dead  in  his  palace. 
Then  his  body,  filled  with  myrrh  and  cassia,  and  cinnamon 
and  all  sweet  spices  hut  frankincense,  was  swathed  in  gum 
med  cloth,  the  cunning  of  life  to  cheat  corruption,  and  was 
borne  to  the  tomb  which  all  his  life  he  had  been  preparing 
and  adorning.  Yet  life  was  not  long  enough  to  make  the 
bed  for  his  dreamless  slumber,  and  usually  the  kings  died 
before  their  tombs  were  ready. 

Such  is  royal  death,  mused  that  Theban,  a  passage  to 
the  delights  of  heaven  from  the  delights  of  earth — the  ex 
change  of  the  silver  for  the  golden  goblet.  It  is  symbol 
ized  by  this  defile,  dazzling  if  dreary — sunny,  if  stony  and 
sandy.  Ah !  Osiris,  royal  death  is  the  brief,  brilliant  des 
ert  between  the  temple  palace  and  the  temple  tomb. 

We  saw  several  of  these  thoughtful  Thebans,  vapory 
shadows,  musing  upon  the  solitary  rocks  as  we  advanced. 
Presently  we  were  embosomed  in  the  hills.  They  were 
only  barren  and  blazing,  not  at  all  awful  or  imposing,  being 
too  low  and  perpendicular.  Besides,  the  rock  of  which  they 
are  composed  is  like  a  petrified  sponge,  and  looks  water- 
worn,  which  it  is  not,  and  unenduring.  To-day  the  sun 
was  especially  genial,  seeming  to  consider  the  visiting 
the  tombs  of  kings  a  very  cheerful  business.  So  he  shone 
ever  more  brilliant  and  burningly,  and  in  the  mazes  of 
the  spongy  rock  caught  the  Howadji  and  ogled  them  with 
the  glaring  fierceness  of  a  lion's  lust  and  hate. 


DEAD    KINGS.  263 


"  Ho,  ho !"  scoffed  the  sun.  "  These  were  kings  of  men 
and  great  Grods  and  Leviathans  in  the  land.  They  must 
lie  apart  from  others  in  the  tornb,  and  be  sweet  and  sep 
arate  for  eternity.  And  up  this  warm,  winding  way,  a 
little  after  they  had  come  hither  dead,  I  saw  Cambyses  and 
his  proud  Persians  rushing,  broad  alive,  and  after  them, 
an  endless  host  of  kings,  travelers,  scholars,  snobs,  cock 
neys  and  all  other  beasts  and  birds  of  preyr  and  Cambyses 
to  the  latest  shopman  Iproke  into  the  select  society,  shiv 
ered  their  porphyry  sarcophagi,  scattered  and  robbed 
and  despoiled,  sending  away  hands,  feet,  heads,  and  all 
cherished  and  sacred  jewels  and  talismans,  and  now  I  can 
not  distinguish  the  dust  of  Amun-neit-gori,  or  Osirei,  or 
Thothmes  from  the  sand  of  the  hills."  ^f 

"Kings!"  scoffed  the  sun.  "  Here's  a  royal  shin-bone — 
the  shin  of  a  real  Theban  king.  You  may  buy  it  for  a  pound 
to-day,  if  it  were  not  sold  for  a  shilling  yesterday,  and  for 
a  farthing  if  you'll  give  no  more.  The  ring  in  his  slave's 
ear  in  the  plebeian  tombs  is  worth  a  hundred  of  it." 

Vainly,  a  thoughtful  Theban  that  lingered  almost  in 
visible  in  the  intense  light  along  the  defile,  suggested  to 
the  sun,  that  royalty  was  never  held  of  the  body — that 
monarchs  and  monarchies  were  only  instruments  and  insti 
tutions — that  the  whole  world  was  a  convention,  and  vir 
tue  a  draft  upon  heaven.  The  sun  would  gibe  his  gibe. 

"  Ho,  ho  !  kings'  shins,  going,  going  !  kings'  hands  and 
feet,  who  bids?  Not  a  para  from  any  of  the  crowd  who 
sell  their  souls  every  day  to  kiss  the  hands  and  feet  of 
some  sort  of  royalty,  the  world  over.  Ho,  ho,  ho,  kings !" 


264  NILE    NOTES. 


What  a  diabolical  sun !  He  scoffed  so  fervently  that 
the  Howadji  grew  very  silent,  having  previously  thought 
it  rather  a  good  thing  to  show  a  mummy  at  home,  that 
they  had  found  in  the  kings'  tombs  at  Thebes.  But  with 
that  sun  glaring  out  of  the  sky,  who  could  dare  ?  So 
they  crept  very  humbly  on,  deftly  defying  him  and  ward 
ing  off  sun-strokes  with  huge,  heavy  umbrellas  of  two 
thicknesses  of  blue  cotton,  and  consequently  constantly  on 
the  point  of  melting  and  dripping  down  the  donkeys'  sides, 
while  the  spectral  sponge-rock  echoed  the  chirrups  of  the 
donkey  boys  mockingly.  "  Ah !  my  young  gentlemen  travel 
a  long  way  to  see  tombs.  But  you  will  have  enough  of 
them  one  day,  young  gentlemen.  What  stands  at  the  end 
of  all  your  journeying?"  The  abashed  Howadji  crept  still 
silently  along,  and  reached  at  length  the  end  of  the  tortuous, 
stony  valley,  in  the  heart  of  the  Libyan  hills. 

Here  was  high  society.  If  the  field  of  the  cloth  of 
gold  is  famed  because  two  live  kings  met  there,  what  shall 
this  assembly  of  numberless  dead  kings,  and  kings  only, 
be  ?  No  squires  here,  no  henchmen  or  courtiers.  Nothing 
but  the  pure  dust  here.  All  around  us,  the  low  square 
doors  sculptured  in  the  hill  bases,  open  into  their  presence- 
chambers.  Nor  any  gold  stick  in  waiting,  nor  lord  high 
chamberlain  to  present  us.  What  democracy  so  demo 
cratic  as  the  congregation  of  dead  kings  ?  Let  us  descend. 
Even  you  and  I,  0  Pacha,  are  as  good  as  many  dead 
kings.  And  is  not  Verde  Giovane,  himself,  equal  to  x,  or 
an  unknown  quantity  of  them  ?  The  runaway  Mohammad 
who  returned  penitent  at  Syene,  shall  officiate  as  chamber 
lain  with  the  torch  crate. 


DEAD    KINGS.       .  265 


Now  down — but  hold  !  The  kings  are  not  there.  They 
are  in  the  Vatican,  in  the  Louvre,  in  London,  at  Berlin,  at 
Vienna,  in  choice  museums,  and  scattered  undistinguished 
upon  the  rocks.  The  master  of  the  house  being  out,  of 
course  you  will  not  enter. 

Leave  them  to  museums  and  histories.  "What  are  they 
to  us  ?  Their  tombs,  not  themselves,  are  our  shrines  to 
day.  Ramses'  tomb  is  at  this  moment  of  greater  moment 
to  us  than  his  whole  life.  Were  he  sitting  now  on  Mem- 
non's  pedestal,  would  the  Howadji  sacrifice  seeing  his  tomb 
to  seeing  him  ? 

M 


XXXIII. 

Stunt 

THE  Howadji  descended  into  the  tomb.  It  is  the  trump 
tomb  of  the  kings'  valley,  and  is  named  Belzoni,  from  the 
traveler.  The  peasants  observed  the  ground  sinking  at 
this  point  of  the  hill,  and  suggested  as  much  to  Dr.  Riip- 
pell.  But  Grermania,  though  sure,  is  slow,  and  while  the 
Doctor  whiffed  meditative  meerschaums  over  it,  Belzoni 
opened  it,  thereby  linking  his  name  with  one  of  the  most 
perfect  of  Theban  remains. 

"We  went  perpendicularly  down  a  range  of  shattered 
stone  steps,  and  entering  the  tomb,  advanced  through  a  pas 
sage  still  sloping  downward.  The  walls  were  covered  with 
hieroglyphs  fresh  as  of  yesterday.  They  are  a  most  grace 
ful  ornament  in  their  general  impression,  although  the  de 
tails  are  always  graceless,  excepting  the  figures  of  birds, 
which  in  all  Egyptian  sculptures  are  singularly  life-like. 
In  the  wall  and  ceiling  painting  of  these  tomb-passages  is 
the  germ  of  the  arabesques  of  the  Roman  epoch.  Here  is 
clearly  the  dawn  of  the  exquisite  delicacy  of  the  ceilings 
of  the  baths  of  Titus,  and  the  later  loveliness  of  the 
Loggie.  Looking  at  these  rude  lines,  but  multitudinous 


BURIED.  267 


and  fresh,  I  saw  the  beginnings  of  what  Raphael  per 
fected. 

Still  advancing,  the  Howadji  descended  steps  and 
emerged  in  a  hall.  It  is  small,  but  the  walls  are  all  care 
fully  painted.  The  Grods  are  there,  and  the  heroes — some 
simple  epic  of  heroic  life,  doubtless,  which  we  do  not  quite 
understand,  although  we  interpret  it  very  fluently.  Other 
chambers  and  one  large  hall  succeed.  In  this  latter  are 
figures  of  four  races  upon  the  central  columns,  supposed  to 
indicate  the  four  colored  races  of  the  world.  The  walls 
and  ceilings  are  all  painted  with  figures  of  the  King  Osirei, 
father  of  Ramses,  whose  tomb  it  was,  offering  gifts  to  the 
Grods  and  receiving  grace  from  them. 

These  subterranean  halls  are  very  solemn.  The  mind 
perpetually  reverts  to  their  host,  to  the  embalmed  body 
that  was  sealed  in  the  sarcophagus  as  in  a  rock — sur 
rounded  in  night  and  stillness  with  this  sculptured  society 
of  earth  and  heaven.  It  is  hard  to  realize  that  these  so 
finely  finished  halls  were  to  be  closed  forever.  Nor  were 
they  so,  for  the  kings,  after  three  thousand  years,  were  to 
come .  again  upon  the  earth,  and  their  eyes  should  first 
light  upon  the  history  and  the  faith  of  their  former  life. 
How  much  of  this  was  pride,  how  much  reverence  of  roy 
alty,  how  much  veneration  for  the  human  body? 

Break  a  sarcophagus  with  Cambyses,  and  ask  the  ten 
ant — or  mayhap  our  thoughtful  Theban  has  also  meditated 
that  theme.  While  you  await  the  answer,  we  pass  into  a 
fourth  room,  and  find  that  death,  too  enamored  of  a 
king,  did  not  tarry  for  the  tomb's  completion,  for  here  are 


268  NILE    NOTES. 


unfinished  drawings — completed  outlines  only  and  no 
color. 

The  effect  is  finer  than  that  of  the  finished  pictures. 
The  boldness  and  vigor  of  the  lines  are  full  of  power.  There 
are  boats  and  birds,  simple  lines  only,  which  we  should 
admire  to-day  upon  any  canvas.  That  old  Egyptian  ar 
tist  was  as  sure  of  his  hand  and  eye,  as  the  French  ar 
tist,  who  cut  his  pupil's  paper  with  his  thumb  nail,  to  in 
dicate  that  the  line  should  run  so,  and  .not  otherwise.  The 
coloring  is  rude  and  inexpressive.  The  drawing  of  the  hu 
man  figure  conventional,  for  the  church  or  the  priests  or 
dained  how  the  .human  form  should  be  drawn.  Later,  the 
church  and  priests  ordained  how  the  human  form  should 
be  governed.  Yet,  0  sumptuous  scarlet  queen,  sitting  on 
seven  hills,  you  were  generous  to  art,  while  you  were 
wronging  nature. 

There  was  going  down  dangerous  steps  afterward,  and 
explorations  of  chambers  dim,  whose  farther  end  had  fallen 
in  and  shut  out  investigation.  The  same  song  was  every 
where  sung  in  different  keys.  Three  hundred  and  twenty 
feet  we  advanced  into  the  earth,  and  one  hundred  and 
twenty  downward.  In  that  space  all  the  Grods  were  gath 
ered,  could  we  have  known  them,  and  wondrous  histories 
told,  could  we  have  heard  them.  Fresh  and  fair  the  walls, 
but  the  passages  and  steps  were  broken,  and  the  darkness 
was  intolerably  warm  and  stifling.  Students  of  hiero 
glyphs,  artists,  the  versed  in  Egyptian  mythology,  jackals 
and  mummy  merchants  had  longer  tarried  and  increased 
their  stores.  But  the  Howadji  did  what  the  owner  and 


BURIED. 


builder  of  the  tomb  could  not  do.  They  crept  out  of  it, 
and  sat  down  upon  the  shattered  steps  of  the  entrance,  to 
smoke  peaceful  chibouques. 

At  the  door  of  this  tomb,  as  of  all  others,  were  mummy 
merchants,  who  gathered  round  us  and  outspread  their 
wares.  Images,  necklaces,  rings,  arms,  heads,  feet,  hands, 
bits  of  the  mummy  case,  and  little  jars  of  seed,  charms, 
lamps,  all  the  rich  robbery  of  the  tombs,  placidly  awaited 
inspection.  The  mummy  merchants  are  the  population  'of 
the  Theban  ruins.  Grave  ghouls,  they  live  upon  ~  dead 
bodies.  They  come  out  spectrally  from  columns  and  walls, 
as  if  they  were  the  paintings  just  peeled  off,  and  sit  at 
tomb  doors  like  suspicious  spirits,  and  accost  you  unintel 
ligibly  as  you  go. gaping  from  wonder  to  wonder.  But  are 
grave  always,  the  ghouls,  and  no  shrieking  pertinacious 
pedlers. 

We  descended  a  few  doors  off,  into  the  Harpers'  tornb, 
not  that  a  harper  is  there  buried,  but  there  are  two  Homerio 
figures  drawn  upon  the  walls  of  a  small  room,  singing 
hymns  to  the  harp,  and  they  give  their  name  to  the  tomb. 
It  belongs  by  right  to  Ramses  III.  But  if  that  sneering 
sun  could  steal  in,  he  would  tell  the  Howadji  that  the 
harpers  are  more  interesting,  and  that  Time  estimates 
Kings  at  their  value. 

This  tomb  is  a  cotemporary  daguerreotype  of  old  Egyp 
tian  life — the  life  of  the  field,  of  the  river,  of  the  house,  of 
art,  of  religion.  Fruits  are  here,  birds,  baskets,  vases, 
couches,  pottery,  skins.  It  is  a  more  vivid  and  accurate 
chronicle  than  Herodotus.  These  figures  are  drawn  in 


270  NILE    NOTES. 


small  separate  chambers,  and  each  kind  by  itself,  as  if  to 
symbolize  the  universality  of  the  kings'  kingdom  and  the 
arts  in  it.  They  do  not  seem  pictures  of  separate  scenes, 
as  in  the  private  tombs,  but,  as  is  proper  in  royal  tombs, 
of  the  general  forms  and  instruments  of  Egyptian  life. 
Yet  what  is  the  knowledge  that  our  princess  Re-ni-no-fre 
sat  upon  a  chair  like  ours,  if  we  know  that  she  was  beau 
tiful  and  young  ? 

For  the  name's  sake  we  entered  the  tomb  of  Memnon, 
a  title  of  Ramses  V.,  and  because  it  was  the  favorite  of  the 
Greeks.  It  was  easy  and  pleasant  to  see  why  they 
preferred  it,  because  of  the  symmetry  of  the  arrangement 
and  the  extreme  delicacy,  finish  and  fineness  of  the  paint 
ings.  In  the  farther  chamber  is  a  huge  sarcophagus  of 
Egyptian  porphyry,  broken  by  some  invader,  and  over  it 
and  on  all  the  ceilings  are  astronomical  enigmas  of  fine 
color. 

From  all  these  royal  tombs  the  occupants  are  long  since 
departed.  Not  to  heaven  and  hell  but  to  choice  cabinets 
of  curiosity,  and  to  the  winds  whither  Cambyses  and  the 
other  invaders  incontinently  sent  them.  The  significance 
of  their  much  painting  is  mostly  a  secret.  The  sacred 
symbols  are  too  mystic  for  us  moderns.  That  serpent  with 
two  men's  heads  at  his  tail  looking  backward — three  snake 
heads  in  their  proper  places  looking  forward — two  pairs  of' 
human  legs  walking  different  ways,  and  inexplicable  sprouts 
upon  his  back,  is  more  puzzling  than  the  interior  of  Africa 
or  the  name  of  Charon's  boat.  Fancy,  of  course,  figures 
magnificent  meanings  for  the  unintelligible,  and  the  fair 


BURIED.  271 


daughters  of  beamy  John  Bull,  did  they  not  explain  at 
length  those  mysteries  over  the  pleasant  dinners  at  Shep 
herd's  ?  Yet  truth  is  a  simple  figure,  though  fond  of 
dress. 

In  all  the  tombs  was  one  (rod,  a  foxy-headed  divinity, 
who  greatly  charmed  us.  He  was  in  all  societies,  in  all 
situations.  Generally  he  was  tapping  a  surprised  figure 
upon  the  shoulder,  and  pricking  the  fox  ears  forward, 
saying,  like  an  impertinent  conscience,  "Attend,  if  you 
please."  Then  he  sits  in  the  very  council  of  heaven  and 
hobnobs  with  Amun  Re,  and  again  farther  on,  taps  another 
victim.  Such  sleepless  pertness  was  never  divine  before. 
Yet  he  is  always  good-humored,  always  ready  for  pot-luck, 
(rods,  kings,  or  Howadji,  all  is  fish  to  the  foxy.  He  seemed 
the  only  live  thing  in  the  tombs.  Much  more  alive  than 
sundry  be-goggled  and  be-vailed  male  and  female  Howadji 
who  explored  with  us  these  realms  of  royal  death.  We 
asked  the  foxy  to  join  us  in  a  sandwich  and  chibouque  in 
the  entrance  of  Memnon's  tomb.  But  he  was  too  busy 
with  an  individual  who  seemed  not  to  heed  him — and  re 
mained  tapping  him  upon  the  walls. 

In  the  late  afternoon  we  crossed  the  mountains  into 
the  valley  of  priests'  tombs.  The  landscape  was  lovely 
beyond  words,  and  at  sunset  from  the  crumbling  Sphinxes 
of  El  Kurneh  we  turned  toward  Memnon  as  the  faithful 
turn  to  Mecca.  The  Howadji  fleet,  mostly  English,  lay  at 
the  opposite  Luxor  shore,  gay  with  flags  and  streamers, 
and  boats  with  mingled  Frank  and  Muslim  freight  glided 
across  the  gleaming  river.  The  huge  pylon  of  Karnak 


272  NILE   NOTES. 


towered,  like  the  side  of  a  pyramid,  over  the  palms ;  and 
in  a  clumsy  tub  of  a  boat,  and  rowed  by  a  brace  of  the 
common  right  angular  oars,  trimmed  boughs  of  trees, 
we  were  forced  through  the  rosy  calm  to  our  dismantled 
Ibis. 


XXXIX. 


FOR  even  Re-ni-no-fre  must  die  and  be  buried  suitably. 
Love  and  beauty  were  no  more  talismans  then,  than  now. 
Death  looked  on  Queens  with  the  evil  eye.  What  bowels 
of  beauty  and  royalty  have  not  the  Libyan  hills  !  "What 
Sultan  so  splendid  that  he  has  a  hareem  so  precious  ! 

The  ladies  lie  lonely  and  apart  from  their  lords.  The 
Kings  are  at  one  end  of  the  old  Libyan  suburb  —  the  Queens 
at  the  other.  We  approached  the  Queens'  tombs  through  an 
ascending  sand  and  stone  defile.  But,  as  becomes,  it  is 
not  entirely  sequestered  from  the  green  of  the  valley,  and 
the  door  of  a  Queen's  tomb  framed  as  fair  an  Egyptian 
picture  as  I  saw.  These  tombs  are  smaller  and  less  im 
portant  than  those  of  the  Kings.  .  The  kings,  who,  as  at 
Dahr-el-Baree,  inserted  their  cartouches  or  escutcheons 
over  those  of  their  predecessors,  and  so  strove  to  cheat  pos 
terity,  could  not  suffer  their  wives  to  be  buried  as  nobly  as 
themselves. 

Yet  after  the  elaboration  and  mystic  figuring  and  toil 
ing  thought  and  depth  and  darkness  and  weariness  of  the 
kings'  tombs,  the  smallness  and  openness  of  the  queens'  is 


274 . ;  ;:C v^/; •>;';: v .:,;. •.- K- i LE  NO T'E  s . 


refreshing.  ,  They  -  .are  mere  caves  in  the  rook,  usually  of 
three  pr  four  chambers.  The  sculptures  and  paintings  are 
gracious  and  simple.  They  are  not  graceful,  but  suggest 
the  grace  and  repose  which  the  ideal  of  female  life  requires. 
:;v.  Simple  landscapes,  ,  gardens,  fruit  and  /lowers  are  the 
subjects  <^f  the  s  paMtings.  No  .bewildering  .grandeurs  of 
and\fp:ot^d  serpents—  of  G^od^-inconceivable, 
'symbols,  all  which,  ana*  the  ;taftgie(l 
mesh  .of  other  theologioal  'emblems^  ,  is  merely  human. 
jjth^largeniesa  iatnd  simplicity  ^of  nattiral  form^,  as  true 
touching  ftp  us-,  as  to  those  who  painted  theriL 
;yThis  Simplicity,  which  was.  intended,  doul)tles$,  in  the 
royal  mind,/tD  syrnfeolijze  t^  Jesser  glory  of  the  spouse^  is 
now  the  surpassing  Taeautypf.  ;  the  tombs.  Ill  the  grac^ 
£ul  largeness  and  simplicity  df  the  character  of  the  >decora- 
t^ris^  it  ^seems  as  -if  the  sec^  >f  reVe^encerVfor  womanly 
charaoter  and  iitftuence,  wjiieih.  yas  to  be  later  revealed, 
was  ijistiptctively  suggested^  ^  by  those  who  knew  them  not. 
<I3ye  was  truly  created  long  and  long  after  Adam,  and;  at 
rural  Worcester,  they  doubt  if  she  be  quite  completed  yet. 
!Those  ^ise  Egyptian  priests  knew  many  things,  but  knew 
hpt;the  best.  .  Arid  ithe  profound  Difference  of  modern  civil 
ization  ftorn  :arwif^tj  a^  the  "Western  from  the  Eastern, 
wiat  is  it  :but  tjie  aclv-eni  of  Eve  ?  In  Cairo  and  Bamas-  = 
}:^^  with  his  chibouque  and  fin-- 
riioclia  ;  ^^  but  his  wives,  like  the  dogs  and  horses  of 
tKe  Western^  ';&t$  excluded  from  the  seats  of  equality  and 


of  the  walls,  and  tHejr  expo- 


.••'.:'••-.•.•:_. -A;?',"'.*!.  .-"•.:     ••"        - 

DEAD    QUEENS. 


sure  to  the  day,  the  warm  silence  of  the  hill  seclusion,  and 
the  rich  luminous  landscape  in  the  vista  of  the  steep  valley, 
made  these  tombs  pleasant  pavilions  of  memory.  We 
wandered  through  them  refreshed,  as  in  gardens.  They 
are  all  the  same,  and  you  will  not  explore  many.  But  the 
mind  digests  them  easily  and  at  once-^while  those  kings' 
tombs  may  yet  give,  thought  a!^y^p6psia.  |  £ /' .'.^  ••  v  ,; 

While  the  Howadji  loitered,'  ectta.  ml  qua, .  stood^  iqur   • 
foxy  friend  upon  the  bright  walls.     •'' Well  said,  old  mole! 
canst  work   i'  the  earth  so  fast?" :>'«  Yes,"  said  h$/£jV-j 
thought  I'd  step  over  ;  their  majesties  might  be  lonely." 

Foxy,  Foxy !  I  elect  thee  to  my  Penates,  To  thee 
shall  an  altar  be  builded,  and  an  arm-chair  erected  ther^ 
upon.  Thereof  shall  punch-bowls  be  the  vessels,  and  fra 
grant  datakia  the  incense.  A  model  God  is  Foxy,  alive, 
active,  busy, — looking  in  at  the  hareem,  too,  lest  they  be 
lonely!  W\ 


XL. 


THE  mere  Theban  subjects  died,  too,  and  they  also  had 
to  be  buried.  Their  tombs  are  in  the  broad  face  of  the 
mountains  toward  the  river,  and  between  those  of  the 
kings  and  queens.  They  command  a  fairer  earthly  pros 
pect  than  those  of  their  royal  masters,  and,  Osiris  favoring, 
their  occupants  reached  the  heavenly  meads  as  soon. 

The  great  hillside  is  honey-combed  with  these  tombs. 
There  is  no  wonder  so  wonderful  that  it  shall  not  be  real 
ized,  and  the  Prophet's  coffin  shall  be  miraculous  no  longer, 
for  here  the  dwellings  of  the  dead  overhang  the  temples 
and  the  houses.  The  romantic  Theban  could  not  look  at 
the  sunset,  but  he  must  needs  see  tombs  and  find  the  sun 
set  too  seriously  symbolical.  Clearly  with  the  Thebans, 
death  was  the  great  end  of  life. 

The  patient  little  donkeys  would  have  tugged  us  up  the 
steep  sand  and  rock-slope,  from  the  plain  of  Thebes.  But 
we  toiled  up  on  foot  through  a  village  of  dust  and  barking 
dogs  and  filthy  people  inconceivable,  and  on  and  higher, 
through  mummy  swathings,  cast  off  from  rifled  mummies 
and  bleaching  bones.  If  a  civilized  being  lived  in  modern 


ET    CETERA.  277 


Thebes,  he  would  certainly  inhabit  a  tomb  for  its  greater 
cleanliness  and  comfort,  and  would  find  it,  too,  freshly 
frescoed. 

In  the  kings'  tombs,  we  encountered  the  unresolvable 
theological  enigmas,  with  the  stately  society  of  Grods  and 
heroes.  The  queens  welcomed  us  in  gardens  and  in  barges 
of  pleasure,  while  timbrels  and  harps  rang,  and  the  slaves 
danced  along  the  walls,  offering  fruit  and  flowers, — or 
would  have  done  so,  had  they  not  rejoined  their  spouses  in 
choice  cabinets. 

But  the  plebeians  receive  us  in  the  midst  of  their  fields 
and  families.  The  hints  of  the  Harper's  tomb  are  mi 
nutely  developed  in  many  of  the  private  tombs.  Every 
trade,  and  the  detail  of  every  process  of  household  econo 
my—of  the  chase  and  all  other  departments  of  Theban 
life,  are  there  pictured.  Much  is  gone.  The  plaster  casing 
of  the  rock  peels  away.  Many  are  caves  only.  But  in 
some  the  whole  circle  of  human  labor  seems  to  be  picto- 
rially  completed. 

The  social  scenes  are  most  interesting.  Yery  graceful 
is  a  line  of  guests  smelling  the  lotus  offered  as  a  welcome ; 
but  times  change  and  manners.  Pleasant  and  graceful 
would  it  yet  be  to  welcome  friends  with  flowers.  But  all 
do  not  dwell  upon  rivers,  neither  are  the  shores  of  all  riv 
ers  lithe  with  lilies.  Haply  for  modern  welcome,  a  cigar 
and  glass  of  sherry  suffice. 

I  say  graceful,  meaning  the  idea,  for  upon  the  walls 
you  would  see  a  very  stiff  row  of  stiff  figures  smelling  at 
stiff  flowers.  With  your  merely  modern  notions,  you 


probably  mistake  the  lotus  for  a  goblet.  Were  you 
an  artist,  you  would  cherish  the  idea  until  you  carved  in 
a  cup  that  graceful  flower  form.  Figures  of  musicians, 
whose  harps  arid  guitars  and  tambourines  would  «eem; to 
you  the  germs %pl,th.e/tar  eijad:t3^e.iababy  would  awaken  vague 
visions  of  Hecate  and  the  -old  itits^&ndi  i  ^But  if  you  beheld 
the  dancers,  infallibly  you  would .slide /down  three  thou 
sand  years  in  a  moment,  and  musily  gazing  from  t^  door  ; 
into  the  isdft  morning^your  eyes > ^u}db y^am  toward  ijsjs^'l 
and  even  your  more  ; severely  .Regulated  ^  heart,  rnernor^ 
mind,  or  iwh#£  you  will,  toward  the  gay  Grhazeey ah  and 
the  modest  dove, " .,': ; 

These  tombs-Eke  the  rest  are  tenantless.  At  intervals 
come  the  scientific  and  open  new  ones.  The  mummy 
jcnerchants  and  Howadji  follow  and  seize  the  spoils,  Time 
succeeds  and  preys,  though  tenderly,. upon  the  labor  of  an 
antiquity 'that  has  eluded  him— for  he  was  busy  in  the 
plain  below  smoothing  the  green  grave  of  Thebes.  For  the 
tomb  of  Thebes  itself  is  the  freshest  and  fairest  of  all. 
The  stars  come  and  go  in  the  ceiling,  .  The  wheat  waves 
and  is  harvested,  flowers  spring  and  fade  upon  the  floor. 
The  same  processes  of  life,  are  not  repeated,  but  they  are 
reaj  there.  Its  tenant  too  has  disappeared  like  the  rest- 
but  into  no  known  cabinet 

We  emerged  from  the  tombs,  and  clomb  down  the  hill 
A  house  of  unusual  pretension,  with  a  swept  little  court  ut 
front,  attracted  our  notice.     O  traveler,  heed  not  the  clean 
little  court — for  the  figure  that  sits  therein,  amply  arrayed,  • 
sedately  smoking  as  if  life  were  the  very  vanity  of  vanities, 


ET    CETERA.        .^feS^'^S;' -;279 


is  the  monarch  of  mummy  merchants,  who  exacts  terrible 
tribute  from  the  Howadjt.     A  Greek  ghoul  is  he,  who 
lives  by  the  living  no,  less  than  the  dead. 
;;•    Fix  your  eye  upon  Memnon,  and  follow  to  the  plains 
Amble  quietly  in  his  sunset-shadow  to  the  shore.     The  air 
will  sway  with  ghosts  you  can  not  lay.     Dead  Thebans . 
from  the  mountains  will  glide  shadowy  over  dead  Thebes 
in  the  plain.— -Chapless*  fallen,  forgotten;  now,  we  too  were;; 
young  immortals— we  too  Were  of  Aready  l;--:^.-^$JJ?, 


XLI 


THERE  is  a  satisfaction  in  the  entire  desolation  of 
Thebes.  It  is  not  a  ruin,  but  a  disappearance.  The 
Libyan  suburb,  which  seems  to  have  been  all  tombs  and 
temples,  is  now  only  a  broad  and  deep  green  plain  ending 
suddenly  in  the  desert  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains. 
Thereon  Memnon  and  his  mate,  the  Memnonium  and 
Medeenet  Haboo,  are  alone  conspicuous.  Exploration  re 
veals  a  few  other  temples  and  some  mighty  statues,  which, 
as  they  lie  broken  at  Titan  length  —  their  sharp  outlines 
lost  by  the  constant  attrition  of  the  sand,  seem  to  be 
returning  into  rock. 

This  plain,  making  a  green  point  in  the  river,  is  by  far 
the  most  striking  situation  for  a  city.  Yet  we  see  it, 
deducting  the  few  ruins,  as  men  lost  in  the  past  saw  it. 
Nor  shall  the  American  whose  history  is  but  born  —  stand 
upon  this  plain  of  Thebes  which  has  outlived  its  history, 
without  a  new  respect  for  our  mother  earth  who  can  so 
deftly  destroy,  sand-grain  by  sand-grain,  the  most  stupen 
dous  human  works. 

Step   westward   and  behold  a  prairie.     Consider  the 


THE   MEMNONIUM.  281 

beginnings  of  a  world  metropolis  there — its  culmination  in 
monuments  of  art— its  lingering  decay  and  desolation 
until  its  billowy,  tumultuous  life  is  again  smoothed  into  a 
flowery  prairie.  With  what  yearning  wonder  would  the 
modern  who  saw  it  turn  to  us,  lost  in  antiquity.  Then 
step  eastward  and  behold  Thebes. 

The  Memnonium  is  not  the  remains  of  the  temple 
before  which  Memnon  sat.  It  was  a  temple-palace  of 
Ramses  the  Great.  It  is  a  group  of  columns  now  with 
fallen  and  falling  pylons,  a  few  hundred  rods  from  Mem 
non.  You  will  find  it  one  of  the  pleasantest  ruins,  for  the 
rude,  historical  sculptures  are  well  nigh  erased.  There 
are  no  dark  chambers,  no  intricacy  of  elaborate  construc 
tion  to  consider,  and  the  lotus-capitaled  columns  are  the 
most  graceful  I  saw. 

"We  must  be  tolerant  of  these  Egyptian  historical 
sculptures  upon  pylons  and  temple  walls  for  the  sake  of 
history  and  science.  But  the  devotee  of  art  and  beauty 
will  confess  a  secret  comfort  in  the  Memnonium,  where 
the  details  are  fast  crumbling,  and  the  grandeur  of  the 
architecture  stands  unencumbered.  Here  is  an  architec 
ture  perfect  in  its  grand  style  in  any  age.  Yet  on  the 
truly  rounded  columns,  palm-like  below  and  opening  in  a 
lotus  cup  to  bear  the  architrave,  are  sculptures  of  a 
ludicrous  infancy  of  art.  It  is  hard  to  feel  that  both  were 
done  by  the  same  people.  Had  they  then  no  feeling  of 
symmetry  and  propriety  ?  It  is  as  if  the  Chinese  had 
sculptured  the  walls  of  St.  Peter's  or  the  Vatican. 

In  the  midst  of  the  Memnonium,  lies  the  shattered 


282  NILE    NOTES. 


Colossus  of  Ramses — a  mass  of  granite  equal  to  that  of 
Memnon.  How  it  was  overthrown  and  how  broken  will 
never  be  known.  It  is  comfortable  to  be  certain  of  one 
thing  in  the  bewildering  wilderness  of  ruin  and  conjecture, 
even  if  it  be  only  ignorance.  Cambyses,  the  unlucky  Persian, 
is  here  the  scapegoat,  as  he  is  of  Memnon's  misfortune  and 
of  Theban  ruin  in  general.  "  Cambyses  or  an  earthquake," 
insists  untiring  antiquarian  speculation,  clearly  wishing  it 
may  be  Cambyses.  An  earthquake,  then,  and  Oh !  pax ! 

This  Colossus  sat  at  the  temple  gate.  His  hands  lay 
upon  his  knees  and  his  eyes  looked  eastward.  And  even 
the  tumbled  mass  is  yet  serene  and  dignified.  Is  art  so 
near  to  nature  that  the  statue  of  greatness  can  no  more 
lose  its  character  than  greatness  itself? 

Behind  the  statue  was  a  court  surrounded  with  Osiride 
columns,  and  a  few  shattered  ones  remain.  I  fancy  the 
repose  of  that  court  in  a  Theban  sunset,  the  windless 
stillness  of  the  air  and  cloudlessness  of  the  sky.  The 
King  enters,  thoughtfully  pacing  by  the  calm-browed  statue, 
that  seems  the  sentinel  of  heaven.  In  the  presence  of  the 
majestic  columns  humanly  carved,  their  hands  sedately 
folded  upon  their  breasts — his  weary  soul  is  bathed  with 
peace,  as  a  weary  body  with  living  water. 

Ramses'  battles  and  victories  are  sculptured  upon  the 
walls— his  offerings  to  the  Grods  and  their  reception  of  him. 
There  is  an  amusing  discrepancy  between  the  decay  and 
disappearance  of  these,  and  the  descriptions  in  Sir  Gardiner. 
Spirited  word-paintings  of  battle-scenes,  and  scenes  celes 
tial,  or  even  animated  descriptions  of  them,  are  ludicrously 


THE    MEMNONIUM.  283 

criticized  by  their  subjects.  That,  too,  is  pleasant  to  the 
Howadji,  who  discovers  very  rapidly  what  his  work  in  the 
Memnonium  is ;  and  stretched  in  the  shadow  of  the  most 
graceful  column,  while  Nero  silently  pencils  its  flower- 
formed  capital  in  her  sketch-book,  he  looks  down  the  vistas 
and  beyond  them,  to  Memnon,  who  for  three  thousand 
years  and  more  has  sat  almost  near  enough  to  throw  his 
shadow  upon  this  temple,  yet  has  never  turned  to  see  it. 

There  sat  the  Howadji  many  still  hours,  looking  now 
southward  to  Memnon,  now  eastward  to  gray  Karnak  over 
the  distant  palms.  Perchance  in  that  corridor  of  columns, 
Memnon  and  the  setting  sun  their  teachers,  the  moments 
were  no  more  lost  than  by  young  Greek  immortals  in  the 
porch  of  the  philosophers.  Yet  here  can  be  slight  record 
of  those  hours.  The  flowers  of  sunset  dreams  are  too 
frail  for  the  Herbarium. 

There  dozed  the  donkeys,  too,  dreaming  of  pastures 
incredible,  whither  hectoring  Howadji  come  no  more. 
Donkeys !  are  there  no  wise  asses  among  you,  to  bid  you 
beware  of  dreaming?  For  we  come  down  upon  your 
backs,  like  stern  realities  upon  young  Poets,  and  urge  you 
across  the  plain  to  Medeenet  Haboo. 

Ah !  had  you  and  the  young  poets  but  heeded  the  wise 
asses ! 


XLH. 


WONDERFUL  are  the  sculptures  of  Medeenet  Haboo  —  a 
palace-temple  of  Ramses  III.  They  are  cut  three  or  four 
inches  deep  into  the  solid  stone,  and  gazing  at  them,  and 
in  a  little  square  tower  called  the  pavilion,  trying  to  find 
on  the  walls  what  Sir  Gardiner  and  Poet  Harriet  say  is 
there,  you  stumble  on  over  sand  heaps  and  ruin,  and  enter 
at  length  the  great  court. 

The  grave  grandeur  of  this  court  is  unsurpassed  in 
architecture  —  open  to  the  sky  above,  a  double  range  of 
massive  columns  supported  the  massive  pediment.  The 
columns  upon  the  court  were  Osiride  —  huge,  square  masses 
with  the  figures  with  the  folded  hands  carved  in  bold  relief 
upon  their  faces,  and  carved  all  over  with  hieroglyphs. 
The  rear  row  was  of  circular  columns,  with  papyrus  or 
lotus  capitals.  The  walls,  dim  seen  behind  the  double 
colonnade,  are  all  carved  with  history,  and  the  figures  upon 
them,  with  those  of  the  architraves,  variously  colored. 

It  is  solemn  and  sublime.  —  The  mosaic,  finical  effect 
of  so  much  carving  and  coloring  is  neutralized  by  the 
grandeur  and  mass  of  the  columns.  In  its  prime,  when 


MEDEENET   HABOO.  285 

the  tints  were  fresh,  although  the  edges  of  the  sculptures 
could  never  have  been  sharper  than  now,  the  priests  of 
Medeenet  Haboo  were  lodged  as  are  no  modern  monarchs. 

Time  and  Cambyses  have  been  here  too,  and,  alas! 
the  Christians,  the  Coptic  Christians,  who  have  defiled 
many  of  the  noblest  Egyptian  remains,  plastering  their 
paintings,  building  miserable  mud  cabins  of  churches  in 
their  courts,  with  no  more  feeling  and  veneration  than  the 
popes  who  surmount  obelisks  with  the  cross.  I  grant  the 
ruined  temples  offered  material  too  valuable  to  be  left 
through  regard  to  modern  sentiment,  and  curiosity  of 
Egyptian  history  and  art.  It  is  true,  also,  that  the  Chris 
tian  plastering  did  preserve  many  of  the  pagan  paintings. 
But  you  will  grant  that  man,  and  especially  the  Howadji 
species,  has  a  right  to  rail  at  all  defiling  and  defilers  of 
beauty  and  grandeur.  Has  not  the  name  Gfoth  passed  into 
a  proverb?  Yet  were  the  G-oths  a  vigorous,  manly  race, 
with  a  whole  modern  world  in  their  loins,  who  came  and 
crushed  an  effete  people. 

But  enough  for  the  Copts. 

They  erected  a  church  in  the  great  court  of  Medee 
net  Haboo,  piercing  the  architrave  all  round  for  their 
rafters,  instead  of  roofing  the  court  itself.  Nor  let  the 
faithful  complain  of  the  presence  of  pagan  symbols.  For 
the  Copts  and  early  Egyptian  Christians  had  often  the 
pagan  images  and  pictures  over  their  altars.  Nay,  does 
not  Catholic  Christendom  kiss  to-day  the  great  toe  of  Ju 
piter  Oly mpans,  with  reUgious  refreshment  ? 

Now  the  Coptic  columns  of  red  sandstone  encumber 


286  NILE    NOTES. 


this  noble  court  and  lie  leveled,  poor  pigmies,  amid  the 
Titanic  magnificence  of  the  standing  or  fallen  original 
columns.  The  Christian  columns  are  about  the  size  and 
appearance  of  those  in  the  San  Spirito,  at  Florence.  Be 
nign  Brunellesco,  forgive,  but  the  architecture  of  modern 
Europe  is  sternly  criticized  by  this  antique  African  court. 

The  Howadji  sat  upon  a  fragment  of  ruin,  and  the 
graybeard  guide,  who  happily  could  not  speak  ten  words 
of  English,  lighted  their  chibouques.  Then  he  withdrew 
himself  behind  a  prostrate  column,  seeing  that  they  wished 
to  be  still,  and  lay  there  motionless,  like  Time  sleeping  at 
his  task.  The  donkey-boys  spoke  only  in  low  whispers, 
curiously  watching  the  Howadji,  and  the  dozy  donkeys 
with  closing  eyes,  shook  their  significant  ears,  and  shifted 
slowly  from  sun  to  shade.  The  musing,  dreamy  chibou 
que  is,  after  all,  the  choicest  companion  for  these  ruins. 
Chibouques  and  dozy  donkeys,  a  sleeping  old  man,  and 
low  whispering  boys,  scare  not  the  spirits  that  haunt  these 
courts.  Time  too,  you  will  muse,  smokes  his  chibouque 
as  he  lies  at  leisure  length  along  the  world.  Puff,  puff- 
he  whiffs  away  creeds,  races,  histories,  and  the  fairest 
fames  flee  like  vapors  from  his  pipe.  India,  Egypt,  Greece, 
wreathing  azurely  away  in  the  sunshine.  Smoke,  smoke,  all 

Pace  with  Sir  Grardiner  along  the  walls,  if  you  will, 
and  behold  the  triumphal  processions,  deifications,  battles 
and  glories,  terrestrial  and  celestial,  of  the  third  Ramses. 
They  are  curious,  and  worth  your  while.  It  is  well  to  see 
and  know  men's  various  ways  in  various  ages  of  slaughter 
ing  each  other,  and  glorifying  themselves. 


MEDEENET   HABOO.  28T 

But  in  all  this  detail  love  it  not  too  much.  In  these 
temple  remains,  in  the  nectar  of  Egyptian  wisdom,  as 
Plato  and  the  old  wise  pour  if  to  us  in  their  vases  of  won 
drous  work,  have  we  our  heritage  of  that  race.  Spare  us 
the  inventory  of  their  wardrobes  and  the  bulletins  of  their 
battles.  In  history  it  is  not  men's  features,  but  the  grand 
effect  and  impression  of  the  men  that  we  want.  Not  how 
they  did  it,  but  what  they  did.  'Hamses  marched  to  Bab 
ylon.  Cambyses  came  to  Thebes.  Quits  for  them.  Cam- 
byses  upset  Memnon.  That  is  the  great  thing,  and  if 
thereupon  near-sighted  wonder  will  see  stars  in  aNmill- 
stone,  we  will  be  thankful  for  astronomy's  sake,  and 
awaken  old  Time  there  to  refill  the  chibouques. 

For  in  this  magnificent  seclusion  must  we  linger  and 
linger.  The  setting  sun  warns  us  away,  but  in  leaving, 
this  evening,  we  leave  the  Libyan  suburb  forever,  nor  even 
the  morrow  with  Karnak  can  paralyze  the  pang  of  parting. 

It  is  only  here,  too — here  in  the  warm  dead  heart  of 
Egypt,  that  the  traveler  can  see  ruins  as  time  has  made 
and  is  making  them.  Thebes  is  not  yet  put  in  order  for 
visitors.  The  rubbish  of  the  ruined  huts  of  the  Chris 
tian  settlement  within  and  about  this  pile  yet  remains. 
The  desert  has  drifted  around  it,  so  that  many  noble  col 
umns  are  buried  in  dust  to  their  capitals.  The  chambers 
of  the  temple  are  entirely  earthed.  We  climb  a  sand-hill 
from  the  court  to  the  roof  of  the  temple.  Far  down  in  fis 
sures  of  rubbish  are  bits  of  sculptured  wall,  and  upon  the 
same  dust-mountain  we  descend  to  view  the  historical 
sculptures  of  the  outer  wall, 


288  NILE   NOTES. 


This  deepens  the  reality  and  solemnity  of  the  impres 
sion.  Were  it  all  excavated,  and  the  whole  temple  cleared 
and  revealed,  it  were  a  glorious  gain  for  art  and  science. 
But  to  the  mere  traveler — if  one  may  be  a  mere  traveler — 
the  dust-buried  chambers  solemnize  the  court.  If  the  head 
and  unutterable  neck  of  Isis  are  revealed,  wonder  for  the 
rest  is  more  worshipful  than  sight. 

Besides,  excavation  implies  Cicerones  and  swarms  of 
romantic  travelers  in  the  way  of  each  other's  romance. 
You  will  remember,  Xtopher,  how  fatal  to  sentiment  was 
a  simple  English  "  good  evening,"  in  the  moonlighted  Ro 
man  forum.  Imagination  craved  only  salutations  after 
the  high  Roman  fashion,  and  when  Lydia  Languish  did 
not  find  the  Coliseum  so  "funny"  as  Naples,  you  regretted 
the  facilities  of  steam,  and  yearned  to  pace  that  pavement 
alone  with  the  ghosts  of  Caesar  and  Marc  Antony.  Haste 
to  Egypt,  Xtopher,  and  that  Roman  wish  shall  be  ful 
filled,  for  you  shall  walk  erect  and  alone  with  Persian 
Cambyses  or  mild-eyed  Herodotus  or  inscrutable  Rarnses 
— for  "there  is  every  man  his  own  fool,  and  the  world's 
sign  is  taken  down." 

Excavation  implies  arrangement,  and  the  sense  of 
Time's  work  upon  a  temple  or  a  statue,  or  even  a  human 
face,  is  lost  or  sadly  blunted,  when  all  the  chips  are  swept 
away,  and  his  dusty,  rubbishy  workshop  is  smoothed  into  a 
saloon  of  sentiment..  Who  eveT  entered  for  the  first  time 
the  Coliseum,  without  a  fall  to  zero  in  the  mercury  of  en 
thusiasm,  at  the  sight  of  the  well-sanded  area,  the  cross, 
shrines  and  sentinels?  When  it  is  not  enough  that  Science 


MEDEENETHABOO.  289 

and  Romance  carry  away  specimens  of  famous  places  to 
their  museums,  but  Mammon  undertakes  the  making  of 
the  famous  place  itself  into  a  choice  cabinet,  they  may  be 
esteemed  happy  who  flourished  prior  to  that  period. 

And  it  is  pleasant  to  see  remains  so  surpassingly  re 
markable,  without  having  them  shown  by  a  seedy-coated, 
bad-hatted  fellow-creature  at  five  francs  a  day.  You  climb 
alone  to  Aboo  Simbel  in  that  serene  Southern  silence,  and 
half  fear  to  enter  the  awful  presence  of  the  Osiride  col 
umns,  or  to  penetrate  into  the  Adyta,  mysterious  to  you 
as  to  those  of  old,  and  you  donkey  quietly  with 'a  taciturn 
old  Time  over  the  plain  of  green  young  grain,  where  Thebes 
was,  and  feel  as  freshly  as  the  first  who  saw  it. 

But  these  things  will  come.     Egypt  must  soon  be  the , 
favorite  ground  of  the  modern  Nimrod,  Travel — who  so 
tirelessly  hunts  antiquity.     After  Egypt,  other  lands  and 
ruins  are  young  and  scant  and  tame,  save  the  Parthenon 
and  Pestum.     Every  thing  invites  the  world  hither. 

It  will  come,  and  Thebes  will  be  cleaned  up  and  fenced 
in.  Steamers  will  leave  for  the  cataract,  where  donkeys 
will  be  in  readiness  to  convey  parties  to  Philse,  at  seven 
A.  M.  precisely,  touching  at  Esne  and  Edfoo.  Upon  the  Li 
byan  suburb  will  arise  the  Hotel  royal  au  Ramses  le  grand 
for  the  selectest  fashion.  There  will  be  the  Hotel  de  Mem- 
non  for  the  romantic,  the  Hotel  aux  Tombeaux  for  the  rev 
erend  clergy,  and  the  Pension  Re-ni-no-fre  upon  the  water 
side  for  the  invalides  and  sentimental — only  these  names 
will  then  be  English,  for  France  is  a  star  eclipsed  iri  the 
East. 


290  NILE    NOTES. 


But  before  the  world  arrives,  live  awhile  in  the  loneli 
ness  of  the  Theban  temples  and  tombs  with  no  other  so 
ciety  than  Memnon,  and  the  taciturn  old  Time,  and  the 
chibouque.  You  will  seem  then,  not  to  have  traveled  in 
vain,  but  to  have  arrived  somewhere.  Here  you  will 
realize  what  you  have  read  and  thought  you  believed,  that 
the  past  was  alive.  The  great  vague  phantom  that  goes 
ever  before  us  will  pause  here,  and  turning,  look  at  you 
with  human  features,  and  speak  a  language  sweet  and 
solemn  and  strange,  though  unintelligible. 

You,  too,  will  linger  and  linger,  though  the  sunset 
warn  you  away.  You,  too,  will  tarry  for  the  priests  in 
the  court  of  Medeenet  Haboo,  and  listen  for  the  voice  of 
Mernnon.  Y"ou,  too,  will  be  glad  that  the  temples  are  as 
time  left  them,  and  that  man  has  only  wondered,  not 
worked,  at  them.  You,  too,  will  leave  lingeringly  the  Li 
byan  suburb,  and  own  to  Osiris  in  your  heart,  that  if  the 
young  gods  are  glorious,  the  old  gods  were  great. 


•'    J   ':,C   4''"',     -.        ,      .  -x., .  u-  -  •   ,         -   *>. 

*  "  ». '.  •"-'.,'. 

XLIIL 


KARNAK  antedates  coherent  history,  yet  it  was  older  the 
day  we  saw  it  than  ever  before.  All  thought  and  poetry 
inspired  by  its  antiquity,  had  richer  reason  that  day  than 
when  they  were  recorded,  and  so  you,  meditative  reader, 
will  have  the  advantage  of  this  chapter,  when  you  stand 
in  Karnak.  Older  than  history,  yet  fresh,  as  if  just  ruined 
for  the  romantic. 

The  stones  of  the  fallen  walls  are  as  sharply-edged  as 
the  hammer  left  them.  They  lie  in  huge  heaps  or  sepa 
rately  standing  in  the  sand,  and  regarding  the  freshness, 
you  would  say  that  Cambyses  and  his  Persians  had 
marched  upon  Memphis  only  last  week,  while  the  adhe 
rents  of  the  earthquake  theory  of  Egyptian  ruin,  might 
fancy  they  yet  felt  the  dying  throes  of  the  convulsion  that 
had  shattered  these  walls. 

This  freshness  is  startling.  It  is  sublime.  Embalm 
ing  these  temples  in  her  amber  air,  has  not  Nature  so 
hinted  the  preservation  of  their  builders'  bodies  ?  Was  the 
world  so  enamored  of  its  eldest  born,  that  it  could  not  suf 
fer  even  the  forms  of  his  races  and  their  works  to  decay  ? 


292  NILE    NOTES. 


And,  0  mild-eyed  Isis !  how  beautiful  are  the  balances 
of  nature !  In  climates  where  damp  and  frost  crack  and 
corrode,  she  cherishes  with  fair  adorning  the  briefer  decay. 
Italy  had  greenly  graced  Karnak  with  foliage.  Vines  had 
there  clustered  and  clambered  caressingly  around  these 
columns,  in  graceful  tendrils  wreathing  away  into  the 
blue  air  its  massive  grace.  Flowery  grass  had  carpeted 
the  courts,  and  close-clinging  moss  shed  a  bloom  along  the 
walls  to  the  distant  eye  of  hope  or  memory. 

Haply  it  had  been  dearer  so  to  the  painter  and  the 
poet.  But  this  death  that  does  not  decay  is  awful.  On 
the  edge  of  the  desert,  fronting  the  level  green  that  spreads 
velvet  before  it  to  the  river,  Karnak  scorns  time,  earth 
quakes,  Cambyses,  and  Lathyrus,  yes,  and  scorns  also,  ro 
mantic  disappointment.  For  it  is  not  the  most  interesting 
or  pleasing  of  Egyptian  remains.  It  is  austere  and  ter 
rible,  and  sure  to  disappoint  the  romance  that  seeks  in 
ruins  bowers  of  sentiment.  Let  the  Misses  Verde  remem 
ber  that,  when  they  consider  the  propriety  of  visiting  Kar 
nak.  Peradventure,  also,  they  will  there  discover  hiero 
glyphs  more  inexplicable  than  those  of  Theban  tombs. 

"When  Thebes  was  Thebes,  an  avenue  of  ram-headed 
sphinxes  connected  Karnak  with  Luxor.  Imagination  in 
dulges  visions  of  Ramses  the  Great,  superb  Sesostris,  or  the 
philosophical  Ptolemies,  going  in  state  along  this  avenue, 
passing  from  glory  to  glory — possibly  a  statelier  spectacle 
than  the  royal  going  to  open  parliament.  Brightly  that 
picture  would  have  illuminated  these  pages.  But  reality, 
our  coldest  critic,  requires  cooler  coloring  from  us. 


KARNAK.  293 


It  was  a  bright  February  morning  that  we  donkeyed 
placidly  from  ruined  Luxor  to  ruined  Thebes.  The  Pacha 
bestrode  a  beast  that  did  honor  to  the  spirit  of  his  species. 
But  my  brute,  although  large  and  comely,  seemed  only  a 
stuffed  specimen  of  a  donkey.  Stiffness  and  clumsiness 
were  his  points.  A  very  gadfly  of  a  donkey-boy,  his  head 
somewhere  about  my  donkey's  knees,  piloted  our  way  and 
filled  our  sails — namely,  battered  the  animals'  backs.  But 
vainly  with  a  sharpened. stick  he  stung  my  insensible  beast. 
Only  a  miserable,  perpendicular  motion  ensued,  a  very 
little  of  which  had  rendered  beneficent  Halsted  superfluous 
to  a  dyspeptic  world. 

Yet  somehow  we  shambled  up  the  sand  from  the  boat, 
and  passing  through  the  bazaar  of  Luxor,  entered  upon 
the  plain.  A  dusty,  donkey  path,  through  clumps  of  hilfeh 
grass  and  sand  patches,  is  all  that  remains  of  that  Sphinx 
avenue.  "We  scented  sphinxes  all  the  way,  a  mile  and  a 
half,  but  unearthed  no  quarry  until  within  a  few  rods  of 
the  Pylon.  Nero  told  me  afterward,  that  we  had  missed 
the  Sphinx  avenue,  which  I  believed,  for  Nero  was  vera 
cious  and  my  friend.  But,  generally,  the  Howadji  must 
reject  all  such  stories.  Not  only  in  Egypt,  but  wherever 
you  wander,  if  some  owl  has  peered  into  a  hole  that 
you  passed  by,  and  he  discovers  the  oversight,  you  are  ap 
prised  that  you  had  done  better  not  to  come  at  all,  rather 
than  miss  the  dark  hole.  But  we  passed  along  a  range  of 
headless,  ruined  sphinxes,  that  were  ram-headed  once,  and 
reached  the  southern  Pylon.  It  stands  alone — a  simple, 
sculptured  gateway.  Behind  it,  is  a  small  temple  of  Ptole- 


294  NILE   NOTES. 


male  days,  partly,  but  yet  a  portion  of  the  great  temple, 
and  we  climb  its  roof  to  survey  the  waste  of  Karnak. 

The  vague  disappointment  was  natural,  it  was  inevi 
table.  It  was  that  of  entering  St.  Peter's  and  finding  that 
you  can  see  the  end.  Things  so  famous  pass  into  idea] 
proportions.  "  In  heaven,  another  heaven,"  sings  Schiller, 
of  St.  Peter's  dome.  But  if  Schiller  had  looked  from 
Monte  Mario  upon  Home !  It  is  a  disappointment  quite 
distinct  from  the  real  character  of  the  object,  whose  great 
ness  presently  compels  you  to  realize  how  great  it  is.  It 
is  simply  the  sudden  contact  of  the  real  with  the  ideal. 

For  who  ever  saw  the  Coliseum  or  the  Apollo  ?  And  when 
deep  in  the  mountainous  heart  of  Sicily,  the  Howadji  saw, 
green  and  gentle,  the  vale  of  Enna — did  he  see  the  garden 
whence  Pluto  plucked  his  fairest  flower?  A  Coliseum 
and  an  Apollo,  enough  have  seen.  But  the  impossible 
grandeur  and  grace  of  the  anticipation  are  the  glow  of 
the  ideal — the  outline  of  angels  alone.  All  the  vagueness 
and  vastness  of  Egyptian  musing  in  our  minds  invest 
Karnak  with  their  own  illimitability,  and  gather  around  it 
as  the  type  and  complete  embodiment  of  that  idea.  We 
go  forth  to  behold  the  tower  of  Babel,  and  in  ruins,  it  must 
yet  pierce  the  heavens. 

Ah !  insatiable  soul,  Mont  Blanc  was  not  lofty  enough, 
nor  the  Yenus  fair,  yet  you  had  hopes  of  Karnak  !  Try 
Baalbec  now,  and  Dhawnlegiri,  sky-scaling  peak  of  the 
Himalaya. 

Karnak  was  an  aggregation  of  temples.  Orsitasen's 
cartouche  is  found  there,  the  first  monarch  that  is  dis- 


KARNAK.  295 


tinctly  visible  in  Egyptian  history,  and  Cleopatra's — the 
last  of  the  long,  long  line.  Every  monarch  added  a  pylon, 
a  court  or  a  colonnade,  ambitious  each  to  link  his  name 
with  the  magnificence  that  must  outlive  them  all,  and  so 
leave  the  Cartouche  of  Egypt  forever  in  bold  relief  upon 
the  earth. 

The  great  temple  fronted  the  river  westward.  We 
are  at  the  south.  The  eye  follows  the  line  of  the  great 
central  building,  the  nucleus  of  all  the  rest,  backward  to 
the  desert.  It  is  lost  then  in  the  masses  of  sand,  buried 
foundations,  and  prostrate  walls  which  surround  it.  Sepa 
rate  pylons  fronting  the  four  winds,  stand  shattered  and 
submerged.  Sharply  two  obelisks  pierce  the  blue  air. 
The  northern  gateway  stands  lofty  and  alone,  its  neighbor 
ing  walls  leveled  and  buried.  The  eastern  gate  toward 
the  desert  was  never  completed,  it  is  only  half  covered 
with  sculptures.  The  blank  death  of  the  desert  lies  gray 
beyond  it.  Karnak  has  grim  delight  in  that  neighboring 
grimness. 

From  each  gate  but  that  desert  one,  stretched  an  av 
enue  of  sphinxes — southward  to  Luxor,  northward  to  a 
raised  platform  on  the  hills,  westward  to  the  river.  The 
fragments  yet  remain.  Yet  here,  too,  is  that  strange  dis 
crepancy  in  taste  and  sense  of  grandeur,  which  strikes  the. 
eye  in  the  temple  sculptures  compared  in  character  with  the 
architecture. ;  These  avenues  are  narrow  lanes  of  crowded 
sphinxes,  spoiling  their  own  impression.  The  eye  and 
mind  demand  a  splendid  spaciousness  of  approach.  They 
are  shocked  at  the  meanness  of  the  reality,  and  recognize 


NILE    NOTES. 


the  same  inconstant  and  untrue  instinct  that  built  blank 
walls  before  noble  colonnades.  Perhaps  they  were  mat 
ters  of  necessity.  Let  the  artistic  Howadji  hope  they  were. 

Immediately  in  front  of  the  great  pylon  is  the  green 
Nile  plain.  But  sand-drifts  lie  heaped  around  the  court 
of  the  temple.  Patches  of  coarse  hilfeh  grass  are  the  only 
vegetation,  and  a  lonely  little  lake  of  blue  water  sleeps 
cold  in  the  sun,  leafless  and  waveless  as  a  mountain  tarn. 

Bare  and  imposing  is  this  vast  area  of  desolation.  But 
the  eye  shrinks  from  its  severity,  and  craves  grace  and  pic- 
turesqueness.  The  heights  command  always  the  sad,  wide 
prospects.  Thither  men  climb  and  look  wistfully  at  the 
dim  horizon  of  humanity,  even  dreaming,  sometimes,  that 
they  see  beyond.  But  they  are  the  melancholy  men,  who 
live  high  in  watch-towers  of  any  kind.  Loftily  are  they 
lifted  upon  the  architecture  of  thought,  but  love  swoops 
upward  on  .rainbow  pinions,  and  is  lost  in  the  sun.  The 
relevance,  0  testy  Gunning  ?  Simply  that  picturesqueness 
is  more  satisfactory  than  sublimity.  So  through  the  great 
western  gateway,  across  a  court  with  one  solitary  column 
erect  over  its  fallen  peers,  which  lie  their  length,  shattered 
from  their  bases  in  regular  rows,  as  if  they  had  been  piles 
of  millstones  carefully  upset,  we  enter  the  great  hall  of 
Karnak.  Shall  I  say,  the  grandest  ruin  of  the  world  ? 

For  this  is  truly  Karnak.  Here  your  heart  will  bow 
in  reverence,  and  pay  homage  to  the  justice  of  this  fame. 
A  solemn  Druidical  forest  shaped  in  stone  and  flowering 
with  the  colored  sculptured  forms  of  dead  heroes,  and  a 
history  complete.  Not  so  graceful  as  the  columned  grove 


v~       wm ' 
••••':'^ir: 

KARNAK.  297 

•    ''ty  .-<  ^^l       '  « 

»«.;'t     ! ~ 

of  the  Memnqnium,  but  grand  and  solemn,  and  majestic 

inconceivably 

Through  the  vast  vistas  the  eye  can  not  steal  out  to 

the  horizon,  or  catch  gladly  the  waving  of  green  boughs. 

Only  above,  tlfough  the  open  spaces  of  the  architrave,  it 

sees  the  cloudless  sky,-  and  the  ear  hears  the  singing  of  un- 

?    seen  birds. 

"  Is  it  not  strange,  I  never  saw  the  sun  ?"  So  seems 
the  song,  of  birds  never  to  have  been  heard  until  its  sweet 
ness  was  contrasted  with  the  sublime,  solemn  silence  of 
Karnak. 

Here,  could  you  choose  of  all  men  your  companion, 
you  would  call  Michel  Angelo,  and  then  step  out  and  leave 
him  alone.  For  it  is  easy  to  summon  spirits,  but  hard  to 
keep  them  company.  And  a  man  could  better  bear  the 
imposing,  majesty  of  Karnak,  than  the  searching  sadness 
of  the  artist's  eye.  In  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  Michel  An 
gelo  would  have  felt  that  great  artists  unknown,  saw  with 
their  eyes  in  their  way,  the  form  of  the  grandeur  he  sought. 
*In  Memnon,  in  the  great  hall  of  Karnak,  distorted  as 
through  clouds  and  mists,  yet  not  all  unshaped,  he  would 
have  seen  that  an  ideal  as  grand  was  worshiped,  nor  have 
grieved  that  it  was  called  by  another  name.  His  eye,  too, 
would  have  wandered  delighted  over  the  mingled  sweet 
ness  and  severity  of  the  Egyptian  landscape,  vast  and  silent, 
and  sun-steeped  as  the  inner  realm  in  which  he  lived. 

Failing  Michel  Angelo,  there  were  other  figures  in  the 
hall.  Sundry  vailed  specters  were  sketching  the  unsketch- 
able.  Plaid  pantaloons  and  turbaned  wide-awakes  flitted 


rr«i*' 


^*-  W~T4* 

.    .V  ».:  /..-.* 


298  NILE    NOTES. 


among  the  figures  of  gods' and  heroes.  I  saw  a  man/wilh 
a  callotype  investing  Karnak.  Nimrod  ha$  .mcfurited — 
tally-ho!  -  j. 

Nor  fear  a  jest  in  Karnak,  nor  suppose  a  ringing  laugtfv-. 
can  destroy  this  silence.     We  speak,  and  tke  stillness  rip 
ples  around  the  sound,  and  swallows  it  as  tracelessly  a-st, 
mid  ocean  a  stone.     Nor  because  Karnak  is  solemn,  sup-  -** 
pose  that  we  must  be  sentimental.    Thj  Howadji  -sat  upon 
a  sloping  stone,  and  eat  sardine  sandwiches,  desser^ng  with 
dates  and  the  chibouque,  and  the  holy  of  holies  was  not*, 
less  holy,  nor  the  grandeur  less  grand. 

In  the  afternoon  we  wandered  oveT  the  whole  wilder- f 

»         .  t 

ness  of  ruin,  studying  the  sculptures,  deciphering  the  car 
touches,  stumbling  and  sliding  in  the  sand  down  to  tem 
ples   whose    colored    architraves   showed    level   with   the  * 
r  .  •  * 

ground,    so   deeply   were  they   buried.      For   travel   and 

opportunity  have  their  duties.     But -we  returned  to  the     i 
great  hall,  as  thought  always  will  return  to  it,'  from  grub 
bing  in  the  wondrous  waste  of  Egypt,  and  at  sunset  as 
cended  the,  great  pylon  and  looked  across  the  Driver  west-  * 
ward,  to  the  Libyan  suburb. 

The  Howadji  returned  the  next  day  to  Karnak,  and* 
the  next.  A  golden  sunset  streamed  through  it  as  they 
were  finally  departing.  In  the  tenderness  of  its  serene 
beauty,  Karnak  became  beautiful,  too.  The  colors  upon 
the  architraves  and  columns  shone  more  deeply,  and  a^ 
rainbow-radiance  permeated  the  solemn  hall.  Nimrofi  ,was 
coursing  through  the  Libyan  suburb.  Glowingly  golden 
ranged  the  level  grain,  rank  on  rank,  to  the  river.  The 


KARNAK.  299 


birds  gushed  with  their  swift,  sweet,  sunset  songs.  How 
young,  how  shadowy  were  we,  in  that  austere  antiquity ! 
Was  it  compassion  that  unbent  its  awful  gravity  ? 

No,  gadfly !  stinging  my  perpendicular  trotting  insen 
sibility.  Souls  like  ours  conceived,  hands  like  ours  fash 
ioned,  this  awful  Karnak.  Never  succumb  to  Karnak, 
gadfly  !  Man  shaped  the  desert  into  this  divinity.  Pyg 
malion  carved  the  statue  that  smote  his  soul  with  love. 


y 


'    . 


•  •      . 
' 


XLIV. 


A  SACRIFICIAL  sheep  stood  in  the  starlight  on  the  shor* 
at  Luxor.  The  golden-sleeved  Commander  was  profoundly 
religious,  and  proposed  to  hold  a  sacred  feast  of  sheep  — 
"  a  swarry  of  biled  mutton,"  as  later  poets  have  it  — 
upon  his  return  to  Cairo.  The  victim  was  put  below,  the 
crew  rose  from  squatting  on  the  shore  and  came  aboard, 
and  with  plaintive  songs  and  beating  oars  we  drifted  down 
the  river  once  more,  and  watched  the  dim  Theban  moun 
tains  melt  slowly  away  into  invisibility. 

You  fancy  the  Nile  voyage  is  a  luxury  of  languid  re 
pose  —  a  tropical  trance.  There  the  warm  winds  lave  groves 
forever  green,  of  which,  shivering  in  our  wintry  palaces, 
we  dream.  Stealing  swiftly  over  the  Mediterranean,  you 
would,  swallow-like,  follow  the  summer,  and  shuffling  off 
the  coil  of  care  at  Cairo,  would  southward  sail  to  the 
Equator,  happiness,  and  Mountains  of  the  Moon. 

Well,  single  days  are  that  delight,  and  to  me,  the  whole 
voyage,  but  possibly  not  to  you.  A  diamond-decked  dam 
sel  is  not  a  single  jewel,  although  haply  to  the  distant  eye 
she  brilliantly  blaze  like  a  star.  Therefore  to  the  distance 


PRUNING. 


301 


of  hope  and  memory  will  the  Nile  wear  its  best  hue.     Nor 
will  we  quarrel.    To  hope,  all  things  are  forgiven.    Let  us  s 
pardon  memory  that  it  remembers  like  a  lover. 

It  is  hard  to  believe  in  winds  under  a  cloudless  sky,  or 
to  feel  chilly  when  the  sun  shines  brightly.  The  mind 
can  not  readily  separate  the  climate  from  the  character  of 
the  land.  We  never  fancy  gales  in  churchyards,  only  sad 
twilight  breaths,  and  Egypt  being  a  tomb,  to  imagination, 
how  should  there  be  windy  weather  ? 

A  tomb — but  a  temple.  From  the  minareted  mosques 
of  Cairo  you  descend  into  it,  and  well  believe  that  the 
back  door  opens  into  heaven.  The  river  is  its  broad, 
winding  avenue.  The  glaring  mountains  its  walls,  the 
serene  sky  its  dome.  On  either  hand  as  you  advance  is 
the  way  sculptured  with  green  grain  and  palms  of  peace, 
as  in  those  Theban  tombs.  And  more  splendid  are  the 
niches  of  the  dead  here,  than  the  palaces  of  the  living — 
Karnak,  the  Memnonium,  Kum  Ombos,  Aboo  Simbel. 
Grhosts  are  their  tenants  now — Champollion,  Lepsius,  and 
Sir  Grardiner  the  tireless  Old  Mortalities  that  chisel  their 
fading  characters. 

Here  are  enough  buried  to  populate  the  world.  The 
priests  told  Herodotus  a  succession  of  more  than  three 
hundred  kings.  The  thought  bores  antiquity  like  an  Arte 
sian  well.  The  Howadji  looks  upon  Ramses  as  a  modern, 
and  grudges  him  that  name  of  great.  He  appears  every 
where.  From  the  pyramids  to  Aboo  Simbel,  in  all  the  best 
places  of  the  best  remains,  his  cartouche  is  carved.  Why 
was  he  great  ?  What  do  we  know,  who  call  him  so,  but 


302  NILE   NOTES. 


the  fact  of  his  being  a  conqueror  and  a  builder  of  temples 
with  the  captives  he  caught,  to  sculpture  the  walls  with 
the  story  of  their  own  defeat  ? 

Tamerlane  the  Great,  tickles  the  ear  as  well.  Vain  he 
clearly  was,  and  enterprising.  Let  his  greatness  be  proved. 
Ah !  had  we  been  Athenians,  should  we  not  have  black 
balled  the  bejusted  Aristides  ? 

When  you  descend  into  this  tomb  so  stately,  the  "West 
ern  world  recedes,  and  you  hear  of  it  no  more,  and  wonder 
only  how  easily  you  can  accustom  yourself  to  know  noth 
ing  that  happens  in  the  world.  The  sleep  of  Egypt  steals 
into  your  soul.  Here,  to  apprise  you  of  cotemporary  af 
fairs,  roars  no  thunderous  "  Times,"  no  eclectic  "  Galigna- 
ni"  reaches,  speaking  all  sentiments  and  espousing  none. 
No  safe  "  Debats"  is  here.  No  rocket-sparkling  "  Pressed 
No  heavy-freighted  "  Allgemeine  Zeitung"  lumbers  along 
this  way,  making  a  canal  of  the  Nile.  On  this  golden  air 
float  no  yearling  Italian  leaves  gracefully  traced  with 
dream-lines  of  liberty.  How  much  less  any  "  Herald"  hot 
with  special  expresses  from  Grim  Tartary,  or  thoughtful 
"  Tribune"  obviating  the  obliquity  of  the  earth's  axis. 

You  take  your  last  draught  of  news  at  Cairo,  and  are 
the  devotee  of  the  old  till  your  return.  Knowing  all  this, 
how  can  the  traveler,  much  more  the  anti-rolling-stone 
partisans,  who  read  of  sunshine  in  the  glow  of  Liverpool 
or  anthracite,  imagine  wind  in  Egypt  ?  Wind !  type  of 
active  life  in  that  death  silence !  No,  no,  say  you,  hie  to 
Egypt,  and  be  still  and  warm. 

Still  ?     Why,  the  wild  winds  pace  up  and  down  the 


PRUNING.  ,  303 


valley  of  the  Nile,  like  his  mad  hounds  howling  for  Acteon, 
like  "all  the  ghosts  of  all  the  three  hundred  dynasties  an 
terior  to  history,  demanding  to  live  again.  Ally  of  the 
desert,  the  wind  whirls  the  sand  into  columns  and  clouds 
that  sweep  athwart  the  eternal  smile  of  the  sky  and  sink, 
death-dealing,  upon  the  plain.  It  smites  the  palms,  and 
as  they  stretch  straight  their  flexile  limbs,  utterly  con 
sumes  their  grace.  It  tortures  the  river  into  a  foamy,  bil 
lowy  swell,  and  the  soul  of  the  be- vailed,  begoggled  travel 
er  into  rage  and  despair.  Unless,  indeed,  it  favor  his 
course.  Then  all  is  forgiven.  Even  the  loss  of  the  calm, 
which  the  character  of  the  land  requires,  is  forgiven,  for 
he  fancies  windless  days  returning,  and  dreamy  drifting 
upon  the  stream. 

So  did  we.  Grlad  when  the  Ibis  fled  with  full  wings, 
w£  prophesied  the  peace  of  our  return,  and  the  gentle 
gliding  before  southerly  winds.  Yet  the  wind  that  blew  us 
from  Asyoot  to  Aboo  Simbel,  did  not  end  its  voyage  with 
ours.  As  we  returned,  the  northerly  wind  blew  for  a 
month,  lulling  a  little  now  and  then,  even  at  times  yield 
ing  to  the  south.  But  no  sooner  were  we  upon  our  way, 
than  it  was  off  with  us.  Sometimes  it  slept  with  us 
at  night,  but  infallibly  rose  before  we  did  at  morning. 
"  Dream-life,"  said  Nero,  at  Thebes,  deciphering  a  Grreek 
inscription  on  Memnon's  shin.  "What  with  sketching, 
shooting,  reading,  writing,  and  all  in  this  inexorable  wind, 
a  pretty  dream-life  I  find  it."  There  are  the  poets  again, 
guilty  of  another  count ! 

Warm  ?     Why,  the  Howadji  sat  more  voluminously 


304  NILE.  NOTES. 


swathed  in  coats,  cloaks,  and  shawls,  than  a  mummy  in 
his  spiced  bandages.  They  .began  bravely,  with  sitting  in 
front  of  the  cabin  and  warmly  wrapped  in  winter  clothes, 
and  only  a  little  chilly,  played  that  it  was  summer,  and 
conversed  in  a  feeble,  poetic  way  of  the  Egyptian  climate. 
Gradually  they  retreated  to  the  divans  in  the  cabin,  and 
cursed  the  cold.  I  was  sure  that  a  blue  fleet  of  icebergs 
had  undertaken  the  Nile  voyage,  and  were  coming  up  be 
hind  us.  I  knew  that  we  should  meet  white  bear  for 
hippopotami,  walruses  for  crocodiles,  and  the  north  pole 
for  the  equator.  Why  not  push  on  and  find  Sir  John 
Franklin! 

So  the  wind  and  cold  hovered,  awful,  upon  the  edges  of 
dreaming.  Southward,  southward,  no  hope  but  the  Tropic, 
and  we  entered  the  Tropic  one  chilly  morning  that  would 
not  let  me  think  of  Mungo  Park,  but  only  of  Captain 
Parry.— 

0  cow-horned  Isis,  and  thou,  Western  Athor,  forgive, 
that  so  far  this  pen  could  go,  so  much  treason  trace,  to  the 
eternal  warm  repose  of  your  land.  Yet  only  by  a  force 
that  compelled  exaggeration  could  it  be  induced.  The 
book  is  closed  now,  the  daguerreotype  of  those  days.  Egypt 
is  given  to  the  past,  and  memory  shows  it  windless  as  a 
picture.  There  it  lies  golden-shored  in  eternal  summer. 
I  confess  it  now  ;  Egypt  is  that  dream-land,  that  tropical 
trance.  There  lingers  the  fadeless  green,  of  which,  shiver 
ing  in  our  white  wintry  palaces,  we  dream.  The  howling 
ghosts  are  laid ;  those  wild  winds  have  all  blown  them 
selves  away ;  that  fleet  of  icebergs  has  joined  the  Span- 


PRUNING.  305 


ish  armada.     The  Nile  does  not  lead  to  the  North  West 
Passage,  nor  is  Mungo  Park  a  myth. 

Memory  is  the  magician.  She  cuts  the  fangs  from  the 
snakes  that  stung  the  past,  and  wreaths  them,  rainbow 
garlands,  around  its  paling  brows.  The  evil  days  are  not 
remembered.  Time,  as  a  purging  wind,  blows  them  like 
dead  leaves  away,  as  winds  winnow  the  woods  in  autumn 


XLV. 


FOR  the  dream-days  dawn,  lotus-eating  days  of  faith 
in  the  Poets  as  the  only  practical  people,  because  all  the 
world  is  poetry  —  of  capitulation  to  Bishop  Berkeley,  and  con 
fession  that  only  we  exist,  and  the  rest  is  sheer  seeming  — 
when  thought  is  arduous,  and  reading  wasteful,  and  the 
smoke  of  the  chibouque  scarcely  aerial  enough  —  days  that 
dissolve  the  world  in  light.  The  azure  air  and  azure 
water  mingle.  We  float  in  rosy  radiance  through  which 
waves  the  shore  —  a  tremulous  opacity. 

In  the  Arabian  Night  days  of  life,  come  hauntingly 
vague  desires  to  make  the  long  India  voyage.  The  pleas 
ant  hiatus  in  actual  life  —  the  musing  monotony  of  the  day 
—  the  freedom  of  the  imagination  on  a  calm  sea,  under  a 
cloudless  sky  —  the"5  far  floatings  before  trade-  winds  —  the 
strange  shores  embowered  with  tropical  luxuriance,  and  an 
exhaustless  realm  of  new  experience,  are  the  forms  and 
fascination  of  that  longing. 

But  the  Nile  more  fairly  realizes  that  dream-  voyage. 
The  blank  monotony  of  sea  and  sky,  is  relieved  here  by  the 
tranquil,  ever-varying,  graceful  shores,  the  constant  pan- 


PER  CONTRA.  307 


orama  of  a  life  new  to  the  eye,  oldest  to  the  mind,  and  as 
sociations  unique  in  history.  The  palms,  the  desert,  the 
fair  fertility  of  unfading  fields,  mosques,  minarets,  camels, 
the  broad  beauty  of  the  tranced  river,— -these  unsphere  us, 
were  there  no  Thebes,  no  Sphinx,  no  Memnon,  Pyramids 
or  Karnak,  no  simple  traditions  of  Scripture,  and  wild 
Arabian  romances — the  sweetest  stories  of  our  reading. 

In  the  early  morning,  flocks  of  water-birds  are  ranged 
along  the  river — herons,  kingfishers,  flamingoes,  ducks, 
ibis — a  motley  multitude  in  the  shadow  of  the  high,  clay 
banks,  or  on  the  low,  sandy  strips.  They  spread  languid 
wings,  and  sail  snowily  away.  The  sun  strikes  them  into 
splendor.  They  float  and  fade,  and  are  lost  in  the  bril 
liance  of  the  sky.  Under  the  sharp,  high  rocks,  at  the 
doors  of  their  cliff-retreats,  sit  sagely  the  cormorants,  and 
meditate  the  passing  Howadji.  Like  larger  birds  reposing, 
shine  the  sharp  sails  of  boats  near  or  far.  Their  images 
strike  deep  into  the  water  and  tremble  away. 

Then  come  the  girls  and  women  to  the  water-side, 
bearing  jars  upon  their  heads.  On  the  summit  of  the  bank 
they  walk  erect  and  stately,  profile-drawn  against  the  sky 
Bending  and  plashing,  and  playing  in  the  water,  with 
little  jets  of  laugh  that  would  brightly  flash,  if  we  could 
see  them,  they  fill  their  jars,  and  in  a  long  file  recede  and 
disappear  among  the  palms.  Over  the  brown  mud  villages 
the  pigeons  coo  and  fly,  and  hang  by  hundreds  upon  the 
clumsy  towers  built  for  them,  and  a  long  pause  of  sun  and 
silence  follows. 

Presently  turbaned  Abraham  with   flowing   garment 


308  STILE   NOTES. 


and  snowy  beard,  leaning  upon  his  staff,  passes  with  Sarah 
along  the  green  path  on  the  river's  edge  toward  Memphis 
and  King  Pharaoh.  On  the  opposite  desert  lingers  Hagar 
with  Ishmael,  pausing,  pausing,  and  looking  back. 

The  day  deepens,  calmer  is  the  calm.  It  is  noon,  and 
magnificent  Dendereh  stands  inland  on  the  desert  edge  of 
Libya,  a  temple  of  rare  preservation,  of  Isis-headed  columns, 
with  the  same  portrait  of  Cleopatra  upon  the  walls — a 
temple  of  silence,  with  dark  chambers  cool  from  the  sun, 
and  the  sculptures  in  cabinet  squares  upon  the  wall.  Let 
it  float  by,  no  more  than  a  fleeting  picture  forever.  It  is 
St.  Valentine's  Day,  but  they  are  harvesting  upon  the 
shores,  resting  awhile  now,  till  the  sun  is  sloping.  The 
shadeless  Libyan  and  Arabian  highlands  glare  upon  the 
burning  sun.  The  slow  Sakias  sing  and  sigh.  The  palms 
are  moveless  as  in  the  backgrounds  of  old  pictures.  To 
our  eyes  it  is  perpetual  picture  slowly  changing.  The 
shore  lines  melt  into  new  forms,  other,  yet  the  same.  We 
know  not  if  we  wake  or  sleep,  so  dream-like  exquisite  is 
either  sleeping  or  waking. 

The  afternoon  declines  as  we  drift  slowly  under  Aboo- 
fayda  with  a  soft  south  wind.  Its  cliffs  are  like  masses  of 
old  masonry,  and  wheeling  hawks  swoop  downward  to  its 
sharp,  bold  peaks.  Ducks  are  diving  in  the  dark  water  of 
its  shadow.  The  white  radiance  of  the  roou  is  more  rosily 
tinged.  Every  form  is  fairer  in  the  westering  light.  We 
left  Asyoot  yesterday,  at  evening  we  saw  its  many  min 
arets  fade  in  the  dark  of  the  hills,  like  the  strains  of  ara- 
besqued  Arabian  songs  dying  in  the  twilight,  and  at  dusk  a 


PER  CONTRA.  309 


solitary  jackal  prowled  stealthily  along  the  shore.  Joseph's 
brethren  pass  with  camels  and  asses,  to  buy  corn  in  Egypt. 
Geese  in  arrowy  flight  pierce  the  profound  repose  of  the 
sky.  G-olden  gk/oni  gathers  in  the  palm-groves.  Among 
the  scaled  trunks,  like  columns  of  a  temple,  passes  a  group 
of  girls  attending  Pharaoh's  daughter.  Shall  we  reach 
the  shore  before  her,  and  find  the  young  Moses,  Nile-nursed 
with  the  sweet  sound  of  calmly  flowing  waters,  and  the 
sublime  silence  of  the  sky  ? 

The  sun  sets  far  over  Libya.  He  colors  the  death  of 
the  desert,  as  he  tinges  the  live  sea  in  his  setting.  Dark 
upon  the  molten  west,  in  waving,  rounding  lines,  the  fading 
flights  of  birds  are  yet  traced,  seeking  the  rosy  south,  or 
following  the  sun.  The  day  dies  divinely  as  it  lived. 
Primeval  silence  surrounded  us  all  the  time.  "What  life 
and  sound  we  saw  and  heard,  no  more  jarred  the  silence, 
than  the  aurora  lights  the  night.  What  a  wild  myth  is 
wind  !  Wind — wind,  what  is  wind  ? 

The  dazzling  moon  succeeds,  and  the  night  is  only  a 
day  more  delicate.  A  solitary  phantom  barque  glides  sing 
ing  past — its  sail  as  dark  below  as  above,  twin-winged  in 
air  and  water.  Whither,  whither,  ye  ghostly  mariners  ? 
Why  so  sad  your  singing?  Why  so  languid- weary  the 
slow  plash  of  oars  ? 

The  moon  in  rising  glows  over  Antinoe,  under  whose 
palms  we,  float,  and  in  the  warm  hush  of  the  evening  we 
see  again,  and  now  for  the  first  time  perfectly,  the  rounded 
ripeness  of  those  lips,  the  divinely  drooping  lid,  the  matted 
curls  clinging  moist  and  close  around  the  head  and  neck — 


310  NILE    NOTES. 


the  very  soul  of  southern  Antinous  breathed  over  the  Nile. 
The  moon,  striking  the  water,  paves  so  golden  a  path  to 
the  shore  that  imagination  glides  along  the  dream,  fades  in 
Arabia,  and  gaining  the  Tigris — for  the  last  time,  incensed 
reader ! — pays  court  to  the  only  caliph,  and  is  entertained 
in  that  west- winded,  rose-odored  street,  which  the  loves 
and  lovers  of  the  caliph  know . 

— Or  only  the  stars  shine.  Strange  that  in  a  land  where 
stars  shine  without  the  modesty  of  mist,  women  vail  their 
faces.  Clearly  Mohammad  received  his  inspired  leaves  in 
a  star-screened  cave,  and  not  in  the  full  face  of  heaven. 
But  let  him  still  suspended  be,  for  dimly  glancing  among 
the  palms,  silverly  haloed  by  the  stars  that  loved  his 
rnanger — behold  the  young  child  and  his  mother  with 
Joseph  leading  the  ass,  flying  into  the  land. 

Tarry  under  the  stars  till  morning,  if  you  will,  seeing 
the  pictures  that  earliest  fancy  saw,  dreaming  the  dreams 
that  make  life  worth  the  living.  The  midnight  will  be 
only  weirder  than  the  noon,  not  more  rapt.  Come,  Com 
mander,  spread  that  divan  into  a  bed.  Galleries  of  fairest 
fame  are  not  all  Raphaels,  yet  justly  deserve  their  name, 
and  so  does  our  river  life. 

Gfood  night,  Pacha,  the  day  was  dreamier  than  your 
dreamiest  dream. 


XLVI. 


"  From  the  steep 

Of  utmost  Axume,  until  he  spreads 

Like  a  calm  flock  of  silver-fleeced  sheep 
His  waters  on  the  plain ;  and  crested  heads 

Of  cities  and  proud  temples  gleam  amid, 

And  many  a  vapor -belted  pyramid." 

"  MEMPHIS,"  said  the  Commander,  as  he  was  rubbing 
a  spoon  one  morning,  pointing  with  his  thumb  over  his 
shoulder. 

The  Howadji  turned  his  eyes  westward  to  behold  mag 
nificent  Memphis-^the  last  royal  residence  of  genuine 
Egypt — the  abode  of  Pharaohs  and  their  queens — where 
Abraham  left  Sarah,  when  he  went  on  to  see  the  pyramids — 
a  city  built  in  the  channel  of  the  river,  which  was  diverted 
by  King  Menes  for  that  purpose. 

The  Howadji  looked  to  see  the  sacred  lake  over  which 
the  dead  were  ferried,  and  on  whose  farther  shore  sat  the 
forty-two  judges  who  decreed  or  denied  the  rites  of  burial. 
The  Acherusian  lake  near  Memphis  surrounded,  as  the  old 
Diodorus  said,  by  beautiful  meadows  and  canals,  fringed 
with  lotus  and  flowering  rushes.  It  was  a  boat  called  Baris 


312  JXILE    NOTES. 


that  performed  this  office  and  a  penny  was  paid  to  the 
boatman  named  by  the  Egyptians,  Charon.  He  says  that 
Orpheus  carried  to  Greece  the  outlines  of  these  stories,  and 
Homer  hearing,  wrought  them  into  the  Greek  mythology. 

The  Howadji  looked  to  see  the  gorgeous  temple  of  Isis 
and  of  Apis,  the  bull,  who  was  kept  in  an  inclosure,  and 
treated  as  a  god.  He  had  a  white  mark  on  his  forehead, 
and  other  small  spots  on  his  body,  the  rest  being  black. 
And  when  he  died,  another  was  selected,  from  having  cer 
tain  signs,  to  take  his  place. 

He  looked  to  see  the  ranges  of  palaces,  which  Strabo 
did  not  see  until  they  were  ruined  and  deserted,  and  all 
the  pomp  of  royal  and  priestly  and  burial  processions — the 
bearers  of  flowers,  fruit  and  cakes  that  preceded — the 
friends  in  brilliant  garments  that  followed — the  strewers 
of  palm-boughs  that  paved  the  way  with  smooth  green, 
over  which  the  funeral  car  slid  more  easily — barges  of 
bouquets  then,  and  groups  of  mourners — a  high-priest 
burning  incense  over  an  altar  and  above,  the  images  of 
serene  Osiris  and  his  cow-horned  spouse.  These  were  the 
pomps  and  shows  he  looked  to  see,  and  all  the  thousand 
glowing  pictures  of  a  realm  without  limit  to  the  imagina 
tion, — luxuriant  life  developing  in  the  most  beautiful  and 
brilliant  display.  And  the  Howadji  turning,  saw  a  few 
sand  mounds  and  a  group  of  pyramids  upon  the  horizon. 

Nothing  remains  of  Memphis  but  a  colossus  of  Ramses, 
with  his  head  deeply  buried  in  the  earth — overflowed 
yearly  by  the  Nile,  yet  full  of  the  same  fascinating  charac 
ter — another  representation  of  the  old  Egyptian  type  of 


MEMPHIS.  313 


beauty,  shattered  and  submerged  near  a  palm-shored  lake. 
Past  the  lake  we  went,  and  over  the  broad  belt  of  green 
that  separates  the  palms  from  the  desert,  and  then  up  the 
steep  sand  slopes  to  the  pyramids  of  Saccara. 

Standing  at  the  foot  of  the  largest,  and  looking  desert- 
ward,  the  Howadji  beheld  a  landscape  which  is  unlike  all 
others.  Upon. the  chaotic  desert  that  tumbles  eastward 
from  an  infinite  horizon,  jagged  in  sandy  billows,  that 
seem,  in  huge  recoil,  back  falling  upon  themselves  at  the 
edge  of  the  green,  rose  the  multitude  of  pyramids — twelve- 
or.  more  in  number — near  and  far — dumb,  inexplicable 
forms — like  remains  of  a  former  creation  that  (  had  en* 
dured,  through  strength,  all  intervening  changes.  Dim 
mest,  and  farthest  of  all,  the  great  pyramids  of  Grhizeh, 
looming  in  the  faint  haze  of  noon,  like  the  relics  of  fore- 
world  art,  defying  curiosity  and  speculation.  The  solid 
mass  of  these  structures  weighed  palpably  on  the  mind. 
A  dead  antediluvian  silence  settled  around  them,  and 
seemed  to  benumb  the  faculties  of  the  observer,  unmooring 
him  by  its  spell  from  the  sentient  sphere,  to  let  him  drift, 
aimless,  and  without  guide,  into  black  death  and  darkness. 
It  was  a  basilisk  fascination  that  held  the  eye  to  the  sight%  . 
The  pyramid-studded  desert  was  the  strange  verge  and  ming 
ling  point  of  the  dead  and  living  worlds.  Yet  they  stood 
there,  telling  no  tales,  and  the  eye  at  length  released, 
slipped  willingly  far  away  over  the  palms  and ,  beheld  the 
glittering  minarets  of  Cairo. 

The  mummy  merchants  were  here  at  Saccara,  and  of 
fered  endless  treasure  of  amulet  and  idol  and  jewel,  and 

O    '"V 


314  NILE    NOTES. 


from  the  great  cat  catacomb  hard  by,  and  the  bird  tombs, 
mummied  cats  and  deified  ibis  done  up  in  red  pots,  as  the 
remains  and  memorials  of  mighty  Memphis. 

The  Howadji  returned  over  the  same  glad,  green  plain. 
They  had  prowled  into  a  brace  of  dark,  dismal  tombs,  and 
leaned  against  a  pyramid — had  seen  the  beautiful  statue, 
with  the  body  broken,  and  the  face  hidden — a  sad  symbol — 
and  the  pleasant  palms  and  sunny  green  slopes  under  them. 
They  returned  through  the  most  spacious  and  beautiful  of 
palm-groves.  Forgive  their  eyes  and  imaginations  that 
they  lingered  long  in  those  beautiful  reaches,  avenues,  and 
vistas.  It  was  as  if  the  genius  of  palms  knew  that  his 
lovers  were  passing,  and  he  unrolled  and  revealed  his  most 
perfect  beauty  as  an  adieu.  It  was  a  forest  of  the  finest 
palms,  a  tropic  in  itself — through  whose  foliage  the  blue 
sky  streamed,  and  amid  which  bright  birds  flew.  They 
are  the  last  palms  that  shall  be  planted  on  these  pages, 
and  the  last  that  shall  fade  from  memory.  The  young 
ones  seem  not  to  expand  from  saplings  into  trees,  but  to 
spring,  Minerva-like,  fully  formed  and  foliaged,  through  the 
earth,  for  they  bear  all  their  wide- waving  crest  of  boughs 
when  they  first  appear,  and  the  trunk  is  so  large  that  you 
fancy  some  gracious  gnome,  intent  on  adorning  a  world,  is 
thrusting  them  by  main  force  through  the  ground.  As 
we  reached  the  edge  of  this  cheerful  forest,  we  saw  very 
plainly  the  white  citadel  of  Cairo  and  its  lofty  minarets, 
high  above  the  city. 

"We  slipped  down  to  Grhizeh,  and  the  next  morning 
donkeyed  quietly  to  the  pyramids.    Except  for  the  sake  of 


MEMPHIS.  315 


the  Sphinx,  the  Howadji  would  only  advise  the  visit  to  the 
scientific  and  curious,  and  is  the  more  willing  to  say  so, 
because  he  knows  that  every  traveler  would  not  fail  to  go. 
But  the  pyramids  were  built  for  the  distant  eye,  and  their 
poetic  grandeur  and  charm  belong  to .  distance.  "When 
your  eye  first  strikes  them,  as  you  come  up  from  Alex 
andria  to  Cairo,  they  stand  vast,  vague,  rosy  and  distant, 
and  are  at  once  and  entirely  the  Egypt  of  your  dreams. 
The  river  winds  and  winds,  and  they  seem  to  shift  their 
places,  to  be  now  here,  now  there,  now  on  the  western 
shore,  now  on  the  eastern,  until  Egypt  becomes  to  your 
only  too  glowing  fancy,  a  bright  day  and  a  pyramid. 
.  Walk  out  beyond  the  village  of  Grhizeh  at  twilight 
then,  and  see  them,  not  nearer  than  the  breadth  of  the 
plain.  They  will  seem  to  gather  up  the  whole*  world  into 
silence,  and  you  will  feel  a  pathos  in  their  dumbness, 
quite  below  your  tears.  They  have  outlived  speech,  and 
are  no  more  intelligible.  Yet  the  freshness  of  youth  still 
flushes  in  the  sunset  along  their  sides,  and  even  these 
severe  and  awful  forms  have  a  beautiful  bloom  as  of  Hes- 
peridean  fruit,  in  your  memory  and  imagination.  The 
Howadji  may  well  learn  with  pleasure  that  the  Cairo 
Bedlam  is  abolished,  when  he  feels  his  memory  putting 
the  pyramids  as  flowers  in  her  garden.  For  they  are  that. 
They  are  beautiful  no  less  than  awful,  in  remembrance. 

But  as  you  approach,  they  shrink  and  shrink ;  and 
when  you  stand  at  their  bases  and  oast  your  eye  to  the 
apex,  they  are  but  vast  mountains  of  masonry,  sloping  up 
ward  to  the  sky.  Beastly  Bedoueen,  importunate  for  end- 


316  KILE    NOTES. 


less  bucksheesh,  will  pull  you,  breathless  and  angry,  to  the 
summit,  and  promise  to  run  up  and  over  all  possible  pyra 
mids,  and  for  aught  you  know,  throw  you  across  to  the 
peaks  of  the  Saccara  cousins,  Only  threats  most  terrible, 
and  entirely  impossible  of  performance,  can  restore  the  ne 
cessary  silence.  Express  distinctly  your  determination  to 
plunge  every  Bedoueen  down  the  pyramid,  when  they 
have  you  dizzy  and  breathless  and  gasping  on  the  sides 
as  you  go  up  from  layer  to  layer,  like  stairs — swear 
horribly  in  your  gasping  and  rage,  that  you  will  only 
begin  by  throwing  them  down,  but  conclude  by  annihi 
lating  the  whole  tribe  who  haunt  the  pyramids,  and  you 
work  a  miracle.  For  the  Bedoueen  become  as  placidly 
silent  as  if  your  threats  were  feasible,  and  only  mutter 
mildly,  "  Bucksheesh,  Howadji,"  like  retiring  and  innocent 
thunder. 

There  are,  also,  who  explore  the  pyramids :  who,  from 
poetic  or  other  motives,  go  into  an  utterly  dark,  hot  and 
noisome  interior,  see  a  broken  sarcophagus,  feel  that  they 
are  encased  in  solid  masonry  of  some  rods  from  the  air, 
hear  the  howls  of  Bedoueen,  and  smell  their  odors,  and  re 
turn  faint,  exhausted,  smoke-blackened,, with  their  pockets 
picked,  and  their  nerves  direfully  disturbed.  Poet  Harriet 
advises  none  but  firmly-nerved  ladies  to  venture,  and  the 
Howadji  may  add  the  same  advice  to  all  but  firmly-nerved 
men.  To  such,  the  exploration  of  the  pyramids  may  be  as 
it  was  to  Nero — a  grand  and  memorable  epoch  in  life.  For 
he  said  that  he  felt  the  greatness  of  old  Egypt,  more  pro 
foundly  in  tho  pyramids  than  anywhere  else. 


MEMPHIS.  311 


Yet  you  must  seek  the  pyramids,  else  would  you  miss 
the  jSphinx,'  and  that  memory  of  omission  would  more 
sadly  haunt  you,  after  ward,  than  her  riddle  haunted  the 
old  victims  of  her  spells. 

The  desert  is  too  enamored  of  his  grotesque  darling,  and 
gradually  gathers  around  it,  and  draws  it  back  again  to  his  * 
bosom.     For  it  well  seems  the  child  of  desert  inspiration.     , 
Intense  oriental  imagination  musing  over  the  wonderful 
waste,  would  build  its  dreams  in  shapes  as  singular.     It 
lies  on  the  very  edge  of  the  desert,  which  recoils  above  the 
plain  as  at  Saccara.     The  sand  has  covered  it,  and  only 
head,  neck  and  back  are  above  its  level.     In  vain  Cavig- 
lia  strove  to  stay  the  desert.     More  than  half  of  the  sand 
that  he  daily  excavated,  blew  back  again  at  night. 

The  Sphinx,  with  raised  head,  gazes  expectantly  toward 
the  East,  nor  dropped  its  eyes  when  Cambyses  or  Napoleon 
carne.  The  nose  is  gone,  and  the  lips  are  gradually  going. 
The  constant  attrition  of  sand  grains  wears  them  away. 
The  back  is  a  mass  of  rock,  and  the  temple  between  the 
fore-paws  is  buried  forever.  Still  unread  is  my  riddle,  it 
seems  to  say,  and  looks,  untiring,  for  him  who  shall  solve 
it.  Its  beauty  is  more  Nubian  than  Egyptian,  or  is  rather 
a  blending  of  both.  Its  bland  gaze  is  serious  and  sweet. 
Yet  unwinking,  unbending,  in  the  yellow  moonlight  silence 
of  those  desert  sands,  will  it  breathe  mysteries  more  magi 
cal  and  rarer  romances  of  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon  and 
the  Nile  sources,  than  ever  Arabian  imagination  dreamed. 
Be  glad  that  the  Sphinx  was  your  last  wonder  upon  the 
Nile,  for  it  seemed  to  contain  and  express  the  rest.  And 


318  NILE   NOTES. 


from  its  thinned  and  thinning  lips,  as  you  move  back  to 
the  river  with  all  Egypt  behind  you,  trails  a  voice  inaudi 
ble,  like  a  serpent  gorgeously  folding  about  your  meraorv 
— Egypt  and  mystery,  0  Sphinx  ! 


XLVII. 


"  Tired  with  the  pomp  of  their  Osirean  feast." 

"  WITH  all  Egypt  behind  you,"  —  so  donkeyed  the  Ho- 
wadji  from  the  Sphinx  and  the  silence  of  the  desert.  They 
reached  the  shore  and  stepped  upon  the  boat  while  the  sun 
was  wreaking  all  his  glory  upon  the  west.  It  burned 
through  the  trees  and  over  the  little  town  of  Ghizeh,  and 
its  people  and  filth,  and  as  we  moved  into  the  stream,  the 
pyramids  occupied  the  west,  unhurt  for  that  seeing,  large 
and  eternal  as  ever,  with  the  old  mystery  —  the  old  charm. 

The  river  was  full  of  boats,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  city. 
The  wind  blew  gently  from  the  north,  and  fleets  of  sails 
were  stretching  whitely  southward.  Even  some  Howadji 
were  just  dotting  down  their  first  Nile  notes,  and  we,  mar 
iners  of  two  months,  felt  old  and  mature  as  we  watched 
them.  Had  we  not  worshiped  at  Aboo  Simbel  and  con 
quered  the  cataract,  and  heard  Memnon,  and  stood  on 
Memphis  ? 

Back  in  that  sunset  came  thronging  the  fairest  images 
of  the  Nile  ;  and  may  sweet  Athor,  lovely  Lady  of  the  West, 
enable  you,  retiring  reader,  to  stand  looking  backward  over 


320 


NILE    NOTES. 


these  pages,  like  the  figure  with  which  the  Howadji's  artist 
friend  has  graced  this  book's  beginning,  and  behold  a  palm- 
tree,  or  a  rosy  pyramid,  or  Memnon,  or  a  gleam  of  sunshine 
brighter  than  our  American  wont,  or  the  graceful  Ghawazee 
beauty  that  the  voyager  so  pleasantly  remembers. 

— And  you,  Italian  Nera,  who  ask  if  the  sherbet  of  roses 
was  indeed  poured  in  a  fountained  kiosk  of  Damascus,  you 
know  that  Hafiz  long  since  sang  to  us,  how  sad  were  the 
sunset,  were  we  not  sure  of  a  morrow. 


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a  1  uabU    fa)  a  r  k  0, 

IN  THE   DEPARTMENTS  OF 

BIOGRAPHY  AID  HISTORY, 


PUBLISHED   BY 


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or,  Illustrations  by  Pen  and  Pencil,  of  the  History,  Scenery,  Bi 
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By  BENSON  J.  LOSSING,  Esq.  Embellished  with  600  Engravings 
on  Wood,  chiefly  from  Original  Sketches  by  the  Author.  In 
about  20  Numbers,  8vo,  Paper,  25  cents  each. 

Life  and  Writings  of  Thomas  Chalmers,  D.D., 

LL.D.  Edited  by  his  Son-in-Law,  Rev.  WILLIAM  HANNA,  LL  D. 
3  vols.  12mo,  Paper,  75  cents  ;  Muslin,  $1  00  per  Volume. 

Life  of  John  Calvin. 

Compiled  from  authentic  Sources,  and  particularly  from  his  Coi- 
respondence.  By  T.  H.  DYER.  Portrait.  12mo,  Muslin,  $1  00. 

Leigh  Hunt's  Autobiography, 

With  Reminiscences  of  Friends  and  Contemporaries.  2  vols. 
12mo,  Muslin,  $1  50. 

Southey's  Life  and  Correspondence. 

Edited  by  his  Son,  Rev.  CHARLES  CUTHBERT  SOUTHEY,  M.A.  In 
6  Parts,  8vo,  Paper,  25  cents  each  ;  one  Volume,  Muslin,  $2  00. 

Dr.  Johnson :  his  Religious  Life  and  his  Death. 

12mo,  Muslin,  $1  00. 

Life  and  Letters  of  Thomas  Campbell. 

Edited  by  WILLIAM  BEATTIE,  M.D.,  one  of  his  Executors.  With 
an  Introductory  Letter  by  WASHINGTON  IRVING,  Esq.  Portrait. 
2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  82  50. 

Hume's  History  of  England, 

From  the  Invasion  of  Julius  Caesar  to  the  Abdication  of  James 
II.,  1688.  A  new  Edition,  with  the  Author's  last  Corrections 
and  Improvements.  To  which  is  prefixed  a  short  Account  of 
his  Life,  written  by  Himself.  With  a  Portrait  of  the  Author. 
6  vols.  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  40  ;  Sheep,  $3  00. 

Macaulay's  History  of  England, 

From  the  Accession  of  James  II.  With  an  original  Portrait  o( 
the  Author.  Vols.  I.  and  II.  Library  Edition,  8vo,  Muslin,  75 
cents  per  Volume ;  Sheep  extra,  87^  cents  per  Volume  ;  Calf 
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Paper,  25  cents  per  Volume. — 12mo  (uniform  with  Hume),  Cloth, 
40  cents  per  Volume. 

Gibbon's  History  of  Rome, 

With  Notes,  by  Rev.  H.  H.  MILMAN  and  M.  GUIZOT.  Maps  and 
Engravings.  4  vols.  8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $5  00. — A  new  Cheap  Edi 
tion,  with  Notes  by  Rev.  H.  H.  MILMAN.  To  which  is  added  a 
complete  index  of  the  whole  Work  and  a  Portrait  of  the  Author. 
6  vols.  12mo  (uniform  with  Hume),  Cloth,  $2  40;  Sheep,  $3  00. 

Journal  and  Memorials  of  Capt.  Obadiah  Con- 
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New  York.  By  Rev.  H.  T.  CHEEVER.  16mo,  Muslin. 


Valuable  Works  on  Biography  and  History.      3 
Benjamin  Franklin's  Autobiography. 

With  a  Sketch  of  his  Public  Services,  by  Rev.  H.  HASTINGS 
WELD.  With  numerous  exquisite  Designs,  by  JOHN  G.  CHAP 
MAN.  8vo,  Muslin,  $2  50 ;  Sheep,  $2  75  ;  half  Calf,  $3  00. 

History  of  Spanish  Literature. 

With  Criticisms  on  the  particular  Works  and  Biographical  No 
tices  of  prominent  Writers.  By  GEORGE  TICK.NOR,  Esq.  3  vols. 
8vo,  half  Calf  extra,  $7  50  ;  Sheep  extra,  $6  75  ;  Muslin,  $6  00. 

History  of  the  National  Constituent  Assembly, 

From  May,  1848.  By  J.  F.  CORKRAN,  Esq.  12mo,  Muslin, 
90  cents  ;  Paper,  75  cents. 

The  Recent  Progress  of  Astronomy. 

Especially  in  the  United  States.  By  ELIAS  LOOMIS,  M.  A.  12mo, 
Muslin,  $1  00. 

The  English  Language 

In  its  Elements  and  Forms.  With  a  History  of  its  Origin  and 
Development,  and  a  full  Grammar.  By  W.  C.  FOWLER,  M.A. 
8vo,  Muslin,  $1  50  ;  Sheep,  $1  75. 

History  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella. 

By  WILLIAM  H.  PRESCOTT,  Esq.  3  vols.  8vo,  half  Calf,  $7  50  ; 
Sheep  extra,  $6  75  ;  Muslin,  $6  00. 

History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico. 

With  the  Life  of  the  Conqueror,  Hernando  Cortez,  and  a  View 
of  the  Ancient  Mexican  Civilization.  By  WILLIAM  H.  PRESCOTT, 
Esq.  Portrait  and  Maps.  3  vols.  8vo,  half  Calf,  $7  50 ;  Sheep 
extra,  $6  75 ;  Muslin,  $6  00. 

History  of  the  Conquest  of  Peru. 

With  a  Preliminary  view  of  the  Civilization  of  the  Incas.  By 
WILLIAM  H.  PRESCOTT,  Esq.  Portraits,  Maps,  &c.  2  vols.  8vo, 
naif  Calf,  $5  00;  Sheep  extra,  $4  50  ;  Muslin,  $4  00. 

Biographical  and  Critical  Miscellanies. 

Containing  Notices  of  Charles  Brockden  Brown,  the  American 
Novelist. — Asylum  for  the  Blind. — Irving's  Conquest  of  Grenada. 
— Cervantes. — Sir  W.  Scott. — Chauteaubriand's  English  Litera 
ture. — Bancroft's  United  States. — Madame  Calderon's  Life  in 
Mexico. — Moliere. — Italian  Narrative  Poetry. — Poetry  and  Ro 
mance  of  the  Italians. — Scottish  Song. — Da  Ponte's  Observa 
tions.  By  WILLIAM  H.  PRESCOTT,  Esq.  Portrait.  8vo,  Muslin, 
$2  00 ;  Sheep  extra,  $2  25  ;  half  Calf,  $2  50. 

Past,  Present,  and  Future  of  the  Republic. 

By  ALPHONSE  DE  LAMARTINE.  12mo,  Muslin,  50  cents ;  Paper, 
37*  cents. 

The  War  with  Mexico. 

By  R.  S.  RIPLEY,  U.S.A.  With  Maps,  Plans  of  Battles,  &c.  2 
voL.  12rao,  Muslin,  $4  00  ;  Sheep,  $4  50  ;  half  Calf,  $5  00. 


4       Valuable  Works  on  Biography  and  History. 
The  Conquest  of  Canada. 

By  the  Author  of"  Hochelaga."     2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  81  70. 

History  of  the  Confessional. 

By  JOHN  HENRY  HOPKINS,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Vermont.  1 2mo,  Mus 
lin,  $1  00. 

Dark  Scenes  of  History. 

By  G.  P.  R.  JAMES,  Esq.     12mo,  Paper,  7o  cents  ;  Muslin,  $1  00. 

Library  of  American  Biography. 

Edited  by  JARED  SPARKS,  LL.D.  Portraits,  &c.  10  vols.  12mo, 
Muslin,  $7  50.  Each  volume  sold  separately,  if  desired,  price 
75  cents. 

Gieseler's  Ecclesiastical  History. 

From  the  Fourth  Edition,  revised  and  amended.  Translated  from 
the  German,  by  SAMUEL  DAVIDSON,  LL.D.  Vols.  I.  and  II.  8vo, 
Muslin,  S3  00. 

History  of  the  American  Bible  Society, 

From  its  Organization  in  1816  to  the  Present  Time.  By  Rev. 
W.  P.  STRICKLAND.  With  an  Introduction,  by  Rev.  N.  L.  RICE, 
and  a  Portrait  of  Hon.  ELIAS  BOUDINOT,  LL.D.,  first  President  of 
the  Society.  8vo,  Cloth,  $1  50  ;  Sheep,  $1  75. 

Biographical  History  of  Congress  : 

Comprising  Memoirs  of  Members  of  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  together  with  a  History  of  Internal  Improvements  from 
the  Foundation  of  the  Government  to  the  Present  Time.  By 
HENRY  G.  WHEELER.  With  Portraits  and  Fac-simile  Autographs. 
8vo,  Muslin,  $3  00  per  Volume. 

Schmitz's  History  of  Rome, 

From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Death  of  Commodus,  A.D.  192. 
With  Questions,  by  J.  ROBSON,  B.A.  18mo,  Muslin,  75  cents. 

Louis  the  Fourteenth, 

and  the  Court  of  France  in  the  Seventeenth  Century.  By  Miss 
PARDOE.  Illustrated  with  numerous  Engravings,  Portraits,  &c, 
2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  $3  50. 

History  of  the  Girondists  ; 

Or,  Personal  Memoirs  of  the  Patriots  of  the  French  Revolution. 
By  A.  DE  LAMARTINE.  From  unpublished  Sources.  3  vols.  12mo, 
Muslin,  $2  10. 

Josephus's  Complete  Works. 

A  new  Translation,  by  Rev.  ROBERT  TRAILL,  D.D.  With  Notes, 
Explanatory  Essays,  &c.,  by  Rev.  ISAAC  TAYLOR,  of  Ongar.  Il 
lustrated  by  numerous  Engravings.  Publishing  in  Monthly  Num 
bers,  8vo,  Paper,  25  cents  each. 

History  of  the  French  Revolution. 

By  THOMAS  CARLYLE.  Newly  Revised  by  the  Author,  with  In 
dex.  &c  2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  $2  00. 


Valuable  Works  on  Biography  and  History.      5 
Letters  and  Speeches  of  Cromwell. 

With  Elucidations  and  connecting  Narrative.  By  T.  CARLYLE. 
2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  $2  00. 

Life  of  Madame  Guy  on. 

Life  and  Religious  Opinions  of  Madame  Guyon  :  together  with 
some  Account  of  the  Personal  History  and  Religious  Opinions  of 
Archbishop  Fenelon.  By  T.  C.  UPHAM.  2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin, 
$2  00. 

Life  of  Madame  Catharine  Adorna. 

Including  some  leading  Facts  and  Traits  in  her  Religious  Experi 
ence.  Together  With  Explanations  and  Remarks,  tending  to  il 
lustrate  the  Doctrine  of  Holiness.  By  T.  C.  UPHAM.  12mo,  Mus 
lin,  50  cents  ;  Muslin,  gilt  edges,  60  cents. 

Homes  and  Haunts  of  the  British  Poets. 

By  WILLIAM  HOWITT.  With  numerous  Illustrations.  2  vols. 
12mo,  Muslin,  $3  00. 

History  of  Wonderful  Inventions. 

Illustrated  by  numerous  Engravings.  12mo,  Muslin,  75  cents  ; 
Paper,  50  cents. 

Life  and  Writings  of  Cassius  M.  Clay ; 

Including  Speeches  and  Addresses.  Edited,  with  a  Preface  artd 
Memoir,  by  HORACE  GREELEY.  With  Portrait.  8vo,  Muslin, 
$1  50. 

The  Valley  of  the  Mississippi. 

History  of  the  Discovery  and  Settlement  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mis 
sissippi,  by  the  three  great  European  Powers,  Spain,  France,  and 
Great  Britain  ;  and  the  subsequent  Occupation,  Settlement,  and 
Extension  of  Civil  Government  by  the  United  States,  until  the 
year  1846.  By  JOHN  W.  MONETTE,  Esq.  Maps.  2  vols.  8vot 
Muslin,  $5  00  ;  Sheep,  $5  50. 

Southey's  Life  of  John  Wesley ; 

And  Rise  and  Progress  of  Methodism.  With  Notes  by  the  late 
SAMUEL  T.  COLERIDG-E,  Esq.,  and  Remarks  on  the  Life  and  Char 
acter  of  John  Wesley,  by  the  late  ALEXANDER  KNOX,  Esq.  Ed 
ited  by  the  Rev.  CHARLES  C.  SOUTHEY,  M.A.  Second  American 
Edition,  with  Notes,  &c.,  by  the  Rev.  DANIEL  CURRY,  A.M.  2 
vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  $2  00. 

Pictorial  History  of  England. 

Being  a  History  of  the  People  as  well  as  a  History  of  the  King 
dom,  down  to  the  Reign  of  George  III.  Profusely  Illustrated 
with  many  Hundred  Engravings  on  Wood  of  Monumental  Rec 
ords  ;  Coins ;  Civil  and  Military  Costume ;  Domestic  Buildings, 
Furniture,  and  Ornaments  ;  Cathedrals  and  other  great  Works 
of  Architecture  ;  Sports  and  other  Illustrations  of  Manners ;  Me 
chanical  Inventions ;  Portraits  of  Eminent  Persons ;  and  re 
markable  Historical  Scenes.  4  vols.  imperial  8vo,  Muslin,  $14  00 ; 
Sheep  extra,  $15  00  ;  half  Calf  $16  00. 


6      Valuable  Works  on  Biography  and  History. 

Diplomatic  and  Official  Papers  of  Daniel  "Web 
ster,  while  Secretary  of  State.  With  Portrait.  8vo,  Muslin, 
$1  75. 

Life  of  the  Chevalier  Bayard. 

By  WILLIAM  G.  SIMMS,  Esq.     Engravings.     12mo,  Muslin,  $1  00. 

History  of  Europe, 

From  the  Commencement  of  the  French  Revolution  in  1789  to 
the  Restoration  of  the  Bourbons  in  1815.  By  ARCHIBALD  ALI 
SON,  F.R.S.  In  addition  to  the  Notes  on  Chapter  LXXVL, 
which  correct  the  errors  of  the  original  work  concerning  the 
United  States,  a  copious  Analytical  Index  has  been  appended 
to  this  American  Edition.  4  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $4  75;  Sheep 
extra,  $5  00. 

Boswell's  Life  of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson. 

Including  a  Journal  of  a  Tour  to  the  Hebrides.  With  numerous 
Additions  and  Notes,  by  JOHN  W.  CKOKER,  LL.D.  A  new  Edi 
tion,  entirely  revised,  with  much  additional  Matter.  Portrait. 
2  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $2  75 ;  Sheep,  $3  00. 

Life  and  Speeches  of  John  C.  Calhoun. 

With  Reports  and  other  Writings,  subsequent  to  his  Election  as 
Vice-president  of  the  United  States ;  including  his  leading  Speech 
on  the  late  War,  delivered  in  1811.  8vo,  Muslin,  $1  12£. 

Life  of  Charlemagne. 

With  an  Introductory  View  of  the  History  of  France.  By  G.  P. 
R.  JAMES,  Esq.  18mo,  Muslin,  45  cents. , 

Life  of  Henry  IV., 

King  of  France  and  Navarre.  By  G.  P.  R.  JAMES,  Esq.  2  vols. 
12mo,  Muslin,  $2  50. 

History  of  Chivalry  and  the  Crusades. 

By  G.  P.  R.  JAMES,  Esq.     Engravings.     18mo,  Muslin,  45  cents. 

Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans, 

Or,  Protestant  Non-conformists  ;  from  the  Reformation  in  1518 
to  the  Revolution  in  1688  ;  comprising  an  Account  of  their  Prin 
ciples,  Sufferings,  and  the  Lives  and  Characters  of  their  most 
considerable  Divines.  With  Notes,  by  J.  O.  CHOULES,  D.D. 
With  Portraits.  2  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $3  50  ;  Sheep,  $4  00. 

Neander's  Life  of  Christ ; 

In  its  Historical  Connections  and  its  Historical  Development. 
Translated  from  the  Fourth  German  Edition,  by  Professors 
M'CLINTOCK  and  BLUMENTHAL,  of  Dickinson  College.  8vo,  Mus 
lin,  $2  00  ;  Sheep  extra,  $2  25. 

Lives  of  Celebrated  British  Statesmen. 

The  Statesmen  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England ;  with  a  Treat 
ise  on  the  popular  Progress  in  English  History.  By  JOHN  FORS- 
TER.  Edited  by  the  Rev.  J.  O.  CHOULES.  Portraits.  8vo,  Mus 
lin,  $1  75  ;  Sheep,  $2  00. 


21  NCUJ  IDork  on  Spain. 
GLIMPSES  OF  SPAIN; 

OR,    NOTES    OF    AN    UNFINISHED    TOUR    IN    1847, 

BY  S.  T.  WALLIS,  ESQ. 

12MO,    PAPER,    75    CENTS  ;    MUSLIN,    $1    00. 


Its  felicitous  sketches,  its  piquancy  of  narrative,  and  accuracy  of  obser 
vation,  we  may  venture  to  predict  will  give  it  a  high  position  among  the 
best  books  of  travel  of  the  day,  excellent  as  some  of  these  have  been  of  late 
years. — Baltimore  American. 

We  should  be  pleased  if  all  travelers  were  as  entertaining  as  Wallis,  and 
all  "  Notes"  as  racy  and  new  as  these  "  Glimpses  of  Spain." — Lit.  American. 

We  venture  to  predict  for  this  volume  a  very  large  share  of  public  favor, 
which  we  think  it  most  fully  deserves.  *  *  *  An  agreeable  and  clever  work. 
We  repeat  that  we  rarely  stumble  on  one  of  its  kind  that  has  afforded  us 
so  much  pleasure. — Albion. 

These  "  Glimpses"  do  credit  to  the  eye  which  saw  and  the  pen  which 
describes  them.  Mr.  Wallis  treats  of  Spain  and  Spaniards  as  they  are,  not 
as  they  are  not. — Boston  Post. 

The  author  is  an  intelligent  and  well-read  man,  and  tells  his  story  in  a 
very  animated  manner.  He  is  disposed  to  take  a  very  favorable  view  of 
Spanish  character  and  manners,  the  effect  of  which  is  to  render  his  book  the 
more  interesting. — New  York  Observer. 

A  sensible,  well-written,  and  highly  entertaining  volume,  embodying  ma 
tured  and  comprehensive  views  with  interesting  personal  incident. — South 
ern  Christian  Advocate.  . 

It  furnishes  a  rich  intellectual  treats-Methodist  Protestant. 

It  is  written  with  clearness,,  and  in  a  most  agreeable  style,  which  famil 
iarizes,  so  to  speak,  the  reader  with  the  subject  of  which  it  treats,  and  car 
ries  him  on  his  journey  as  if  he  were  really  making  it  himself,  so  skillfully 
and  yet  so  artlessly  is  the  narrative  given. — Baltimore  Patriot. 

The  book  abounds  with  interest  and  amusement. — Freeman's  Journal. 

We  like  this  book  exceedingly.  All  the  author  says  is  full  of  sense,  and 
heart,  and  purpose.  Of  all  the  books  we  have  ever  read  on  Spain,  commend 
us  to  this  one. — Christian  Alliance. 

It  is  characterized  by  a  close  observation  of  all  material  facts  and  inci 
dents,  a  liberal  view  of  existing  institutions,  and  a  style  easy,  graceful,  and 
readable  in  a  high  degree. — Methodist  Quarterly  Review. 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK, 


tlje  3tuthoi;  of  "mtitu  fair. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PENDEINIS: 

HIS    FORTUNES    AND    MISFORTUNES,    HIS    FRIENDS    AND 
HIS    GREATEST   ENEMY. 


BY  W.  M.  TH1CKERAY,  ESQ. 

mtty  Eilustvatfons  bg  t&e  &utjjov. 

IN    SEVEN    NUMBERS,   25   CENTS    EACH,    OR    TWO    VOLS.    MUSLIN,    $2  50. 


As  true  to  the  life  and  as  bitingly  satirical  as  "Vanity  Fair." — Lit.  Mes. 

Thackeray  must  take  his  stand  at  the  head  of  the  prose  satirists,  if  not  of 
the  novelists,  of  the  day.  No  one  describes  the  scenes  and  manners  of  so 
ciety  with  such  curious  felicity. —  Washington  Republic. 

In  satire  he  has  had  no  superior  since  the  days  of  Fielding. — Hold.  Rev. 

We  recognize  in  "Pendennis"  the  able  and  vigorous  intellect  which 
evinced  so  intimate  a  knowledge  of  life  and  such  inimitable  powers  of  por 
traiture  in  "Vanity  Fair."— London  Morning  Herald. 

Here  is  a  book  to  drive  away  melancholy.  It  is  by  that  most  laughter- 
moving  writer  of  the  age,  Thackeray,  and  those  who  read  it  must  laugh,  be 
they  ever  so  melancholy.  We  recognize  every  where  the  pen  of  the  author 
of  "  Vanity  Fair,"  and  are  by  no  means  displeased  with  the  acquaintance. — 
Western  Continent. 

To  all  who  have  read  "Vanity  Fair"  or  "The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond," 
the  very  name  of  Thackeray  is  suggestive  of  the  good  things  contained  in 
any  book  he  may  choose  to  write.  Thackeray's  sympathies  are  all  health 
ful  and  invigorating ;  he  is  the  sworn  enemy  of  all  humbug  and  pretension, 
and  the  good-humored  but  effective  satire  with  which  he  assails  them  has 
rendered  him  one  of  the  most  popular  writers  of  the  day. — N.  Bed.  Mercury. 

Replete  with  truthful  delineations  of  character  and  sparkling  with  the 
coruscations  of  wit  and  humor. — Commercial  Advertiser. 

No  recent  fiction  seems  to  us  to  bear  such  intrinsic  evidence  of  being  drawn 
from  life. — Home  Journal. 

He  (Thackeray)  is  caustic  in  satire,  and  at  the  same  time  witty  and  hu 
morous,  original  and  instructive.  Fielding  led  the  way  in  English  works 
of  fiction  painted  from  nature  ;  and  Dickens  and  Thackeray  are  worthy  suc 
cessors  of  the  great  father  of  the  English  novel. — Baltimore  American. 

Thackeray  pictures  society  in  all  its  phases  in  a  graphic,  sarcastic,  and  yet 
genial  manner. — Transcript. 

We  cheerfully  commend  it  to  every  man  who  would  refresh  his  recollec 
tions  of  his  boyish  freaks  and  fancies  of  love-making. — National  Era. 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK, 


jfntinttnl 


THE  PICTORIAL  FIELD-BOOK 

OF 

v        THE  EE  VOLUTION; 

OR,   ILLUSTRATIONS,   BY  PEN  AND  PENCIL,   OF  THE   HISTORY,   SCENERY, 

BIOGRAPHY,    RELICS,    AND    TRADITIONS    OF    THE 

WAR    FOR    INDEPENDENCE. 

BY  BENSON  J.  LOSSING,  ESQ. 

WITH   600  ENGRAVINGS  ON  WOOD,   BY  LOSS1NG  AND   BARRITT,  CHIEFLY 
FROM   ORIGINAL   SKETCHES  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


This  elegant  work,  issued  semi-monthly,  will  be  completed  in  about  TWEN 
TY  NUMBERS,  containing  forty -eight  large  octavo  pages  each,  at  TWENTY-FIVE 
CENTS  a  number.  It  is  a  pictorial  and  descriptive  record  of  a  journey,  recent 
ly  performed,  to  all  the  most  important  historical  localities  of  the  AMERICAN 
REVOLUTION.  The  plan  is  unique  and  attractive,  embracing  the  character 
istics  of  a  book  of  travel  and  a  history. 

The  historical  portions  of  the  narrative,  which  are  written  in  a  clear  and 
lively  style,  are  interspersed  with  descriptions  of  scenery,  personal  adven 
tures,  amusing  incidents,  and  piquant  sketches  of  character,  giving  a  perpet 
ual  interest  to  the  work,  like  that  of  the  journal  of  a  popular  tourist.  Who 
ever  would  refresh  his  knowledge  of  the  scenes  and  characters  of  the  Rev 
olution,  should  not  fail  to  watch  for  the  appearance  of  these  attractive  and 
delightful  numbers. — New  York  Tribune. 

The  first  number  of  a  serial  so  adapted  to  the  popular  wants  and  taste, 
that  we  pi-edict  for  it  a  success  greater  than  that  which  attended  either  the 
"Pictorial  Bible"  or  "  Shakspeare."  It  is  called  the  "Field-Book  of  the 
Revolution,"  and  is  made  up  of  the  main  incidents  of  that  memorable  period, 
clearly  narrated  from  authentic  sources.  The  wood  engravings  are  in  the 
highest  style  of  the  art,  and  gracefully  interspersed  amid  the  text ;  the  pa 
per  and  print  are  beautiful,  the  subject  universally  attractive,  the  price  of 
the  work  remarkably  low,  and  its  consequent  great  success  certain. — Home 
Journal. 

We  hail  the  appearance  of  this  work  with  great  pleasure,  and  doubt  not 
the  accomplished  author  will,  with  his  well-known  genius,  do  full  justice  to 
his  noble  theme  both  with  ".pen  and  pencil,"  which  he  knows  so  well  how 
to  handle. — Albany  Atlas. 

We  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  it  will  be,  when  completed,  one  of 
the  most  attractive  works  ever  published  in  America. —  Troy  Budget. 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK, 


dbiintittttJttiflit  nf  lilhttli's  iLiuttft  ilntta. 
THE  HISTORY 


OF     THE 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMEEICA, 

FROM 

THE    ADOPTION     OF    THE    FEDERAL    CONSTITUTION     TO 
THE   END   OF   THE   SIXTEENTH   CONGRESS. 

BY  RICHARD  HILDRETH,   ESQ. 


This  work  is  to  be  completed  in  Three  Volumes,  uniform  in  style  and 
price  with  the  author's  earlier  history,  of  which  it  forms  a  continuation. 
The  accuracy  of  research  and  impartiality  of  statement  which  mark  the 
volumes  which  have  already  appeared,  have  been  recognized  by  the  Press 
of  all  shades  of  opinion,  and  in  every  section  of  the  country  ;  and  they  have 
taken  their  place  as  a  standard  authority  in  reference  to  the  period  of  which 
they  treat. 

His  work  fills  a  want,  and  is,  therefore,  most  welcome.  Its  positive  merits,  in 
addition  to  those  we  have  before  mentioned,  are  impartiality,  steadiness  of  view, 
clear  appreciation  of  character,  and,  in  point  of  style,  a  terseness  and  conciseness 
not  unlike  Tacitus,  with  not  a  little,  too,  of  Tacitean  vigor  of  thought,  stern  sense 
of  justice,  sharp  irony,  and  profound  wisdom. — Methodist  Quarterly  Review. 

It  occupies  a  space  which  has  not  yet  been  filled,  and  exhibits  characteristics 
both  of  design  and  of  composition  which  entitle  it  to  a  distinguished  place  among 
the  most  important  productions  of  American  genius  and  scholarship.  We  wel 
come  it  as  a  simple,  faithful,  lucid,  and  elegant  narrative  of  the  great  events  of 
American  history.  It  is  not  written  in  illustration  of  any  favorite  theory,  it  is 
not  the  expression  of  any  ideal  system,  but  an  honest  endeavor  to  present  the 
facts  in  question  in  the  pure,  uncolored  light  of  truth  and  reality.  The  impartial 
ity,  good  judgment,  penetration,  and  diligent  research  of  the  author  are  conspic 
uous  in  its  composition. — JV.  Y.  Tribune. 

We  value  it  on  account  of  its  impartiality.  We  have  found  nothing  to  indi 
cate  the  least  desii'e  on  the  part  of  the  author  to  exalt  or  debase  any  man  or  any 
party.  His  very  patriotism,  though  high-principled  and  sincere,  is  sober  and  dis 
criminate,  and  appears  to  be  held  in  strong  check  by  the  controlling  recollection 
that  be  is  writing  for  posterity,  and  that  if  the  facts  which  he  publishes  will  not 
honor  his  country  and  bis  countrymen,  fulsome  adulation  will  not  add  to  their 
glory.  No  American  library  will  be  complete  without  this  work.— Commercial, 

Decidedly  superior  to  any  thing  that  before  existed  on  American  history,  and 
a  valuable  contribution  to  American  scholarship. — Biblical  Repository. 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK, 


